Raikiri no Naruto
by BijuBoss
Summary: Watch a young boy grow to become a legend as one of Whitebeard's sons Rated M for later Chapters
1. Chapter 1: Enter Naruto

"talking"

"_thinking"_

xox

Small waves gently crashed against a busy wharf, where the docked ships ranged from fishing ships, marine battleships, traveling merchant ships or even simple traveling ships. In fact if one were to look hard enough, one would be able to find the odd pirate ship floating about.

There had been a steady increase in the amount of pirate crews recently. This had all been due to stories of a certain pirate captain who went by the name Gol D. Roger, or Gold Roger as the world media had named him, but he was quickly gaining a reputation for sailing though the Grand Line at a very impressive pace. He was also a gifted fighter apparently, said to be a devastating force in battle.

The coincidental thing though, is that he was born on the very same island that the busy wharfs are located, the Polestar Islands. The island name itself isn't very well known, however the name of the town located on the island was, Loguetown.

At the end of one of these wharfs, there sat a small boy, who looked to be about 5 years old.

A rather skinny boy, who wore simple tattered and torn pants with an equally tattered and torn shirt to match and old worn out sandals on his feet. He could be recognised by his ocean blue eyes and the three strange whisker marks that adorned each cheek. He also had a head of messy and, somewhat dirty, spiky golden blond hair that came down to his shoulders at the back and had two long bangs that came down to his chin and framed his face.

This young boy's name was Naruto.

He couldn't remember his last name, hell, he wasn't even sure he ever had a last name, but just Naruto was good enough for him.

Young Naruto had been sitting at those docks for a good two hours, with his trusty fishing…..stick in hand, but he had yet to catch his dinner.

The blond youth let out a small sigh,"_well looks like I won't be getting anything today"_, he thought.

He stood up and tore the piece of string, that he had been using as a line, off the end of his stick and threw it away. Naruto decided that he would _'borrow' _some food from one of the many vendors that did business in Loguetown's large markets.

xox

Logue town was a huge town, it covered nearly the whole island it rested upon. There were fruit and vegetable markets, meat markets, fish markets, clothes shops, supply shops, weapons shops, houses, hotels, a marine headquarters, and to top it off a huge plaza in the middle of town, and Naruto knew every square inch of it. He knew the backstreets, the alleyways and pathways. He knew which paths to avoid and which ones led where. He also knew that if he kept walking down this ally, he was going to run into one of the gangs that plagued Loguetown.

A gang of thugs and punks that despised children, Naruto in particular.

The reason why they hated him more than any other kid was because Naruto was always bugging them by coming up to them and randomly starting fights. As much as each of them hated to admit it, the malnourished 5 year old could really pack a wallop, sure the gang always won the fights because they had greater numbers and they were bigger, older and stronger than him, but Naruto never gave up until they knocked him unconscious, and he always came back for more. They also noticed that when they fought with the shrimp one-on-one, he seemed to get the upper hand quickly, the gang always won when they, appropriately, ganged up on him.

The reason why Naruto was always starting fights was because he knew that the world was a strange and tough place, and if he wanted to survive, he needed to be just as tough.

Every time he fought, Naruto gained more strength, and knowledge on how to survive a fight.

xox

They gang were currently hanging out in their favourite alleyway, when they heard small footsteps coming their way.

One the gang members looked to see the boy that was always picking fights with them, walking towards them casually with his fishing stick resting on his shoulder.

"Oh no, not this damn brat again", he growled in frustration, he then turned to the others.

"Oi, look who's here for another ass kicking", he said, causing the others to take notice

"Aww no, I was really hoping he wasn't going to show today"

"Man, I'm getting really sick of him"

The biggest of them walked over to Naruto. He was obviously the leader of the group. He looked down at the small blond with an angry look on his face.

"Listen kid, I've had enough of you, if you try to fight us today, or any other day from now on, I'll kill ya, understand." he growled with hatred in his voice.

Naruto, in response, just grinned "You can't kill me".

It was barely a whisper, meant only for the ears of the one in front of him, but the thug leader heard it all too well. He gained a look of pure rage as he raised his fist to smash the kid's face. However before he could do much of anything the kid jumped into action.

He stamped on the thugs foot before driving his fist into his gut knocking the wind out of him, causing the guy, three times his size, to take a knee to try and regain his breath, at this point Naruto struck the side of his oversized head with his fishing stick….hard, so hard in fact that it broke the stick in half. This however wasn't enough to beat the large brute, who threw a sharp backhand at Naruto hitting him in the face, who quickly recovered before jumping onto a small wooden box and then jumping off that giving him enough height to deliver a devastating kick to the man's face, breaking his nose and sending him flying back at the same time.

The big idiot hit the ground in front of his men and then sat up glaring furiously at the blond brat, who just stood there with a blank look.

"You little shit, I'LL KILL YO-", he was cut off by Naruto covering the distance between them in the blink of an eye, and kneeing the leader in the face, causing him to also hit the back of his head on the ground knocking him out cold.

"dammit, you're gonna pay for that", one of the thugs threatened

"GET HIM".

There were six more, Naruto wasn't going to lose this time no matter what.

The first one brought his foot down on Naruto, who in turn jumped out of the way only to be met with a punch to the face by the second one, and then to be picked up and slammed into ground by the third one.

Naruto ignored the pain and forced himself up before charging at the fourth one, who attempted to stab Naruto. Naruto in response, skilfully weaved past the knife and the man's defence, he then gathered as much strength as he could and buried his fist into the fourth one's stomach, then drove an uppercut to the his chin, leaving him dazed. It was then Naruto noticed the second and third ones running up to him from behind. Thinking quickly, Naruto grabbed the fourth's arm and threw him and the incoming two, this was followed up by him running and jumping off the fourth's back and delivering the strongest kick he could muster across both faces of the second and third, rendering them unconscious too.

By this point Naruto was panting and exhausted, he hadn't eaten today, or yesterday for that matter, his legs didn't have the strength to hold him up anymore so he was forced to take a knee.

"_shit, still three more, maybe I shouldn't have fought these idiots today. This isn't good, I'm at my limit". _Naruto tried desperately to get up, but his legs weren't responding.

The three remaining thugs advanced on him, brandishing their own knives

"Hehehe, looks like you're out of steam brat"

"You're just a weak little kid, who's all talk"

One of them picked Naruto up by his shirt and held the knife to his neck. As Naruto felt the cold steel touch his exposed neck, he began to accept what he thought was his fate. It wasn't like there was a family waiting for his return.

"I think I'm gonna enjoy killing—"

Before he could finish his sentence, all three thugs had gained a lifeless look in their eyes. Naruto felt the grip around his shirt fade as the three remaining thugs felt to the ground, dead to the world. Naruto was at a loss for words he didn't know what had happened, one second he's about to get his throat cut, the next he feels a weird wave of power wash over him and the others and then he sees them collapse. Naruto however was completely fine, it was as if the strange force wasn't meant for him.

Naruto stood up and looked around in utter confusion and bewilderment.

"Umm… hello, is anyone there?"

Naruto got no response to his question, causing him to get frustrated.

"Look I know someone's there, now come out before I kick your ass".

It was then that Naruto heard massive footsteps slowly coming towards him. The young boy was frozen in place. He felt it was becoming harder to breath with every footstep that came towards him. As the load footsteps stopped, Naruto knew that the person he had threatened was right behind him. Naruto turned around slowly to see quite possibly the largest man he had ever seen in his short life.

The young boy could only look up in awe at this man, who was at least 3 times the size of any normal grown up. The huge hulking figure wore light loose fitting pants, tucked into large black boots at the bottom and a dark coloured sash around his waist. He wore no shirt, showing off his enormous and scared muscular chest and stomach, but he did wear a huge pirate captain's cloak resting on his shoulders. On his head he wore a light blue and yellow pirate hat on top of a red and black bandana, both of which rested on top of a head of flowing, long blond hair that was fairer than Naruto's own.

The giant's face showed years of experience and wisdom, but by far the most noticeable thing about the man was the large white, crescent-shaped moustache.

It was because of this moustache that even a 5 year old would be able to realise exactly who this man was.

A man who was already a living legend.

The great pirate lord, Edward Newgate

Better known to the world as Whitebeard.

Whitebeard looked down at the small boy in front of him with a grin on his face, that made Naruto feel a little uneasy, and spoke in a deep booming voice befitting of his size.

"Gu ra ra ra ra, who ass did you say you were going to kick, little brat"

"Uh, w-well I, umm"

"You've got some nerve, starting fights with random people and threatening strangers, little brat"

Despite being a little brat, Naruto hated to be called one, which is why he started to get angry.

"D-Don't call me a brat, you baka"

"Oh, and why should I call you anything else?"

"Because my name is Naruto, not little brat"

"I think little brat suits you better"

Before he could calm himself Naruto jumped up to try and hit the huge man, but he wasn't prepared for Whitebeard to simply extent his arm and _flick _the small boy in the forehead. Naruto certainly wasn't expecting the flick to send him crashing to ground and hurt so much.

Naruto sat up holding his forehead.

"Ahh, i-it hurts, what the hell did you do"

Whitebeard's grin never left his face. He could tell the kid didn't have parents and from the fight he had been watching he could see the kid had an enormous amount of potential. It would be a shame to waste it.

"Gu ra ra ra, you're a funny kid, but you're wasting your life here. If you want a life of adventure and a chance to become a powerful pirate, then come with me and accept my mark on your back"

Naruto looked from his seated position shocked as Whitebeard bent down on his knee and offered a huge hand to him.

"Become my son"

"Eh?"


	2. Chapter 2: Naruto, Whitebeard Pirate

"talking"

"_thinking, flashbacks"_

_xox_

_Previously:_

_Whitebeard's grin never left his face. He could tell the kid didn't have parents and from the fight he had been watching he could see the kid had an enormous amount of potential. It would be a shame to waste it._

_"Gu ra ra ra, you're a funny kid, but you're wasting your life here. If you want a life of adventure and a chance to become a powerful pirate, then come with me and accept my mark on your back"_

_Naruto looked from his seated position shocked as Whitebeard bent down on his knee and offered a huge hand to him._

_"Become my son"_

_"Eh?"_

xox

Naruto stared up at the huge pirate ship in front of him. A ship that from this moment on would serve as his home. Naruto knew that the second he was to set foot on this ship, his life would never be the same.

Naruto now stood on the wharf with a new clean look, gone were his old worn clothes and sandals. Naruto was now sporting grey pants with a dark red sash tied around his waist, new black sandals to replace his old ones and a white jacket over a dark orange shirt. Naruto had also cleaned up after visiting a quality bathhouse and got a haircut, he kept the length the same but just made it a bit neater. All paid for by the old man.

Naruto was also feeling better than he had in a long time, thanks to Whitebeard taking him to a restaurant where Naruto ate more than two times his own body weight in food. Naruto had a particular liking for ramen, but he would honestly eat just about anything.

As a seaside breeze caught his now clean hair, Naruto couldn't help but remember what had happened yesterday. His _last _day living in Loguetown.

_**Flashback**_

_Whitebeard looked down at the boy, who was clearly in a state of shock. He wondered if the kid was going to say anything at all, until…_

"_You want…me…to join your crew, to become your son". Naruto was still trying to wrap his head around it._

"_That's what I said", Whitebeard replied with the same grin he'd been wearing the whole time._

"_b-but I can't"_

"_Oh and why not?"_

"_w-well because I'm not strong enough, I-I only got what I'm wearing, I don't have any money—"_

"_I don't care about any of that", said Whitebeard, cutting Naruto off._

"_If you don't think you're strong enough, then I'll make you strong. If you need new clothes, then I'll get you some and you should never worry about something as trivial as money or treasure, because I never have"_

_Naruto felt a strange feeling wash over him. He was remembering that this is what it felt like to have someone care about him. The young boy felt tears in his eyes and quickly brought a hand up to wipe them away._

"_So, what do you say now?"_

_Naruto actually said nothing as he looked up to meet the face of his new father and gave him a small nod._

_**Flashback End**_

Naruto redirected his attention to the ship in front of him.

Calling this ship huge would be an understatement. It was a massive flagship that was obviously built taking Whitebeard's size into account. Naruto could see at least 18 cannons below deck running down each side. The most notable feature about the ship was the large white whale figurehead that made up most of the bow of the ship.

This was Whitebeard's ship, the Moby Dick

Naruto took a minute to properly admire the amazing quality of the lumber used, and the detail to match. Nothing was even a millimetre out of place, it made Naruto wonder exactly how long it took to make and how much it would have cost.

Naruto was so enthralled by the ship's magnificence that he didn't notice that he was on the gangplank until he was halfway up. As Naruto reached the top, he took in a deep breath and stepped off, onto the deck of the Moby Dick.

Naruto observed dozens of fellow Whitebeard pirates buzz around the deck, getting everything ready to set sail. There were men carrying boxes and crates of food, ranging from beef, pork, chicken, fish and other seafood, dairy products and even fruits and vegetables. There men rolling barrel after barrel across the deck, filled with what Naruto could only assume was sake, rum and beer.

Not only that but there were also men carrying on boxes of armaments, like cannon balls, rifles, pistols, bullets, swords and knives. With the amount of stuff they had Naruto thought they must have cleaned out the entire markets.

It was then that a new voice snapped him out of his trance like state.

"Hey, so are you our new nakama?" Naruto turned to see a guy a few years older than him walk over. He had a lean frame, and expression that made him look like he had just woken up. He had on a lavender coloured jacket over a light blue tee shirt, and wore dark green knee high pants and sandals, like Naruto's. Also like Naruto he had spiky blond hair, but unlike Naruto's his was short.

"U-uh yeah, my name's Naruto", answered Naruto

"I'm Marco, I've been on this crew for almost a year now"

"Really, so you're Whitebeard's son too?"

Marco smiled at the new guy's naiveté. He put an arm around his shoulder and took him for a stroll around the deck.

"Well first off, to answer your question, yes I am one of Whitebeard's sons, in fact we all are. Everyone you see on this deck is. Secondly as his sons we don't really call him Whitebeard, he's our oyaji and that's what _we_ call him….oyaji."

"oyaji", Naruto repeated with a whisper. The word sounded completely foreign to him, he knew it was going to take some getting used to.

Naruto heard familiar heavy footsteps beside him, and turned to see the old man looking down at the two blonds.

"I see you've meet Marco", he said to Naruto, causing him to nod in reply, "stick with him, he'll teach you a few things". Whitebeard then turned to the blond in question. "Marco, are we ready to go?"

Marco just looked around the deck, taking a brief mental inventory, "mmm….. yeah I think everyone and everything is accounted for, we're ready to go when you are oyaji".

"Yosh", said Whitebeard turning to the rest of the crew. "MEN, LISTEN UP" he shouted, causing all pirates to give him their immediate, undivided attention, Whitebeard then gestured to his newest son. "This is Naruto; he's our new nakama so make him feel welcome. Now, if everything is in order… LET'S SET SAIL".

The crew erupted in cheers of agreement before once again exploding into activity, only this time they weren't loading supplies, they were raising the anchors, pulling up the aft and forward lines, as well as the gangplank, causing the Moby Dick to become free of its confines in the dock and slowly start to pull away from the wharf.

"Unfurl the sails", yelled Whitebeard as his ship became ready to catch the wind. The pirates atop the three masts complied, undoing some ropes and letting the vast sails fall down and open up to the wind.

Naruto was unprepared for the huge ship to suddenly jolt forward with the rough winds, so much so that he actually fell to his knees, before quickly finding his sea legs. Naruto got up and walked to the starboard railing and looked down to see the ocean water rushing past the hull.

"Pretty impressive, huh", Naruto turned to see Marco beside him.

"Yea", Naruto replied, "I didn't think this huge ship could move so fast"

"Well we only go as fast as the wind lets us, but if you want to see something really amazing than follow me", Marco said as he jumped onto the railing and started to climb the rope ladder attached to the main mast.

Naruto watch Marco climb for a second before he carefully got on the rail and climb the rope himself, following Marco who was already in the first crow's nest that was built into the mast. As Naruto reached the crow's nest, he was greeted with an impressive view that was slightly obscured by ropes and sails.

"Wow, I can see everything on deck from up here", said Naruto with a smile.

"Yeah, it's not bad but that's nothing".

Marco then proceeded to climb the ladder built into the mast that led to the second crow's nest, with Naruto following. When he got to the top, Naruto could see in all directions without anything in the way to spoil his view, and wherever Naruto looked all he could see was a vast blanket of water that stretched out to the horizon in every direction. Every direction except for one.

Naruto turned around to look at 6 o'clock and saw that the Polestar Islands, and the town resting on it, already starting to shrink in the distance. Naruto looked at his former home with an expressionless look on his face. Honestly, Naruto wasn't too sad to be leaving Loguetown.

"Did you leave any family there?" Marco asked curiously.

"No" answered Naruto, not looking away from the disappearing island

Marco could tell that there was more to it than that, but chose not to worry about it. If Naruto wanted to tell him or anyone else about his past then he would.

"Well it doesn't matter" said Marco, gaining Naruto's attention, "the Whitebeard Pirates are your family now".

Naruto smiled after hearing that. It was the first time in a long time that he'd even been so happy

Marco started to climb down the mast. "You can stay up here for as long as you want, but if you see anything interesting just yell down to us".

As Marco resumed his climb down, Naruto couldn't help but smile as he looked out over the ocean. He just knew his life was going to become a lot more interesting from now on.

xox

**(2 months later)**

Naruto had been traveling with the Whitebeard Pirates for a little over two months now. During that time, he had learnt more on the Moby Dick than he had living in Loguetown for five years.

At first it was things that involved living on a ship, such as how to tie various knots, how to properly dock and moor a ship, the names and functions of just about everything on board, and various other things of that nature.

After about a month, Naruto began to learn how the world works. Learning about the north, south, east and west blue seas, learning about the grand line and the unique method of navigation needed to get through it. Naruto also learned about the World Government, a political organisation made up of the majority of the world itself and the marines, the military force of the world government. Even though just about everything piqued his interest, and the fact that Naruto absorbed information like a sponge, the subject that Naruto became most interested in was Akuma No Mi **(devil fruit)**.

The ability to perform superhuman feats, become an animal or even control the elements sounded very appealing to Naruto, sure he knew if he ever ate one then he would never be able to swim, but Naruto never learnt to swim in the first place. When Naruto had first seen Marco's devil fruit powers that allowed him to turn into a phoenix at will, Naruto almost passed out at just how awesome it was. He had learned that the old man had a devil fruit power as well but he had yet to find out what it was.

After two months (and a hell of a lot of food), Naruto had filled out to a healthy weight for his age and size, but was told that he would have to wait a little while before he started to put on a lot of muscle.

Naruto also spent the two months getting to know the crew members he hadn't met yet, and everyone was very nice to him, but none more so than the pretty nurses that were under Whitebeards employ. Being the youngest and most innocent of the crew, the nurses found Naruto to be adorable and knew that he was going to be a real ladies man when he got older. As for Naruto, being a five year old, ladies weren't at the top of his priorities list right now.

Xox

Naruto found himself standing on dry land for the first time in over two months, as he and his father were walking to the middle of a large island, with a grassland terrain in the middle surrounded by a beautiful yet hostile forest, he was wondering what they were doing in the first place.

"_We've still got plenty of food and drink left, so I guess we're not here to get more. Besides I don't think anyone even lives here" _Naruto thought.

After a little more walking, Naruto decided to make his thoughts known.

"Oyaji, why are we here on this island"

Whitebeard kept walking as he answered, "There are a few things I want to tell you about"

Naruto and Whitebeard reached a clearing that was basically just a flat grassy field with a few small cliffs around.

Whitebeard turned to Naruto, "The first reason why we are here is because I want to show you my devil fruit powers now so you don't freak out when you see it in battle".

Naruto had stars in his eyes after hearing this, "A devil fruit power, awesome"

"Yeah, now stand back"

Naruto complied and watched as Whitebeard slowly clenched his fist before throwing it forward, in the direction of a nearby cluster of rocks. It looked and felt as though the old man had hit an invisible wall. When Naruto saw _cracks_ start to appear in the air at the end of the old man's fist, he thought at first that the devil fruit power allowed the old man to manipulate the air somehow. This was proven dead wrong however, when Naruto started to felt the ground start to shake under his feet, before the cluster of rocks that Whitebeard had directed his punch towards was hit by a visible shockwave and utterly obliterated.

The island stopped shaking and the dust settled to show the damage. Naruto could only stare, as nothing intelligent came to mind. Whitebeard saw he perplexed look on his son's face and decided to explain.

"I ate the Gura Gura No Mi and became a Tremor Human"

"A-Amazing" said Naruto in awe.

Whitebeard smiled, "That's nothing, if I wanted to I could sink this whole island"

"_Sink the whole island, that's unreal" _thought Naruto before remembering something.

"Wait oyaji, what's the other reason we're here?"

"There something I want you to start learning now and the earlier we can start the better, because you aren't that good a fighter, so you'll need to know this"

"What do you mean 'not that good a fighter', I can hold my own" exclaimed Naruto, in mild outrage.

"Right, against a bunch of know nothing thugs. Plus, as I recall those guys were going to kill you before I stopped them.

Naruto paused to remember that day. "Oh yeah, how did you do that by the way?"

"Well that's what I wanted to tell you about. The power to sense and utilize spiritual energy and overpower large amounts of enemies… we call this power, Haki"

xox

**(6 months later)**

Naruto stood on the lowered part of the deck on the Moby Dick, with a blindfold tied around his eyes, in a deep state of concentration. As Naruto began to feel the presence of those around him, he took a deep breath to calm himself and remembered what the old man told him.

_**Flashback**_

"_Kenbunshoku No Haki", Whitebeard began to explain, "is one of the three different types of Haki. It allows a person to sense the location of both allies and enemies, over a certain distance, even if they are hidden from view. It also allows you to predict incoming hostile attacks._

_**Flashback End**_

Naruto quickly sidestepped an attempted punch to the face, before ducking down to avoid a sword slash, and jumping back avoiding a kick. Naruto however, failed to sense a new punch that hit him in the chest. This caused Naruto lose his concentration, and was rewarded with a surprise kick to the head sending him skidding across the deck.

"Do you think I knocked him out?" said Marco's voice

"You didn't all the other times you got him" said a new voice, before Marco's was heard again

"Oi Naruto, are you awake?... if you are, then let's stop now"

Naruto stood up shakily, "N-No, I can keep going"

"Well, regardless of whether or not _you_ can keep going, it's been over four hours and we've had enough for now" said the other voice.

"Tsk, fine…wuss" replied Naruto, taking off his blindfold to see Marco standing next to owner of the other voice.

He was a tall, muscular man, with a broad chest and tanned skin. He also had a very distinctive curly black moustache and a trademark dark blue top hat, along with a dark blue open jacket, with a matching cape, light blue pants, dark boots and a brown belt that held two sabres. This was 'Kaken No' Vista **(Flower Blade Vista)**

Naruto looked over to rest of the crew to see them eating lunch. As he walked over to join them, he took a seat between two more of the new crew members that had joined in the last six months.

The one on his left was a huge, tall, muscular man, with dark skin and a constant scowl on his face. He had short black hair, and wore a black tank top with a dark red sash around his waist, dark green pants and black shoes. His name was 'Diamond' Jozu. His epithet of 'Diamond' came from his devil fruit that allowed him to cover the surface of his body in diamonds.

The one on his right was a tall man dressed in a posh white dress coat with matching calf-long pants, a black belt around his waist, a yellow foulard around his neck and brown shoes. His brown hair was done in a pompadour style and he had a black goatee around his chin. He also had a scar next to his left eye. His name was Thatch.

Naruto looked over the newer crew members as he ate his lunch consisting of meat, bread and some nice miso ramen.

Naruto's eye landed on another new crew member, sitting to the side eating a cherry pie. He was a huge man, with more fat than muscle. He had skin that was even darker than Jozu's, long thick curly black hair, a crocked nose and had a few teeth missing. He wore an open white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, dark green pants with a yellow sash around his waist, black shoes and a black bandanna on his head. This guy's name was Marshall D. Teach

Naruto briefly watched the big man enjoying his delicious cherry pie.

He seemed like a nice enough guy, but something was a little off about him. He wasn't an asshole or anything like that, in fact he was pretty nice, but Naruto felt something about him, he couldn't put his finger on it, but…_something_… was weird about him.

Naruto just decided to go back to his lunch and give Teach the benefit of the doubt. If the old man trusted him, then he would to.

Whitebeard's voice then pulled him from his thoughts

"It's still too easy for someone to break your concentration, Naruto"

"Yeah well, if you'd given me more time than one month on that island, I could have trained more" Naruto replied.

The Whitebeard Pirates had only spent one month on that island, until Naruto had grasped the fundamentals of Kenbunshoku Haki, before they set out for the New World. It was very possible for Naruto to hone his skills onboard the Moby Dick, but he just had too much to do on a daily basis for constant training.

"Well, you've come far with your hand-to-hand fighting skills" said Marco

"And your swordsmanship skills" added Vista

Over the past six months, Naruto had also been training with Marco and Vista to improve his overall fighting abilities.

Whitebeard nodded, "Even so, there are still many powerful pirate crews out there, not to mention those in the marines like Fleet Admiral Kong, Admiral Sengoku, Garp and those other Vice Admirals".

Naruto smiled, "Oh, you almost sound scared of them, oyaji"

"Gurararara, of course not, brat"

xox

**(A few weeks later)**

Naruto stood on the port side of the ship, along with his nakama, dressed in an open orange shirt, black shorts, his trademark black sandals and a dark blue bandanna. He currently had a grin on his face while he griped the cutlass he had in his hand.

He wasn't the only one. All of the crewmembers were brandishing their own weapons and staring out the port side of the ship. They were staring at the enemy.

There were _very_ few pirate captains crazy enough, or stupid enough, to challenge the Whitebeard Pirates, but this particular was the only one that could match the Whitebeard Pirates in strength.

Naruto and his nakama stared at the ship floating alongside their own less than 20 metres away. It was a vertical stripe design, with large red sails and two mermaids as its figurehead, each one alongside a large cannon that stuck out the front of the bow.

This ship was called the Oro Jackson, the ship of the Roger Pirates.

The Roger Pirates stood at their starboard side staring back at the Whitebeard Pirates, all of them with their own weapons ready as well.

Naruto's eyes immediately fixed on the man standing in front of them. He was a tall, strong looking man, wearing a long dark red captain's coat over a dark blue shirt, white cravat, blue pants and black pirate boots. He wore a fierce grin on his face that was matched by his intense stare. He had spiky black hair under a dark red captain's hat and yellow spotted bandanna. He also had a very distinctive black curved black moustache that, like Whitebeards, was instantly recognisable.

This man was the captain of the Roger Pirates, Gol D. Roger.

"I know you're there somewhere, show yourself, Whitebeard" spoke Roger, his grin never leaving his face

Whitebeard's heavy footsteps were heard behind Naruto, until he stood in front of his crew with his own weapon in hand. It was a huge bisento that was as tall as he was. The pole was black and brown stripped that ended with a spherical bit at the bottom, and the blade was attached with a golden sleeve. It was the first time Naruto had seen it.

Both infamous pirate captains faced each other, without a single shred of fear. Whitebeard spoke with a grin to match his rival's.

"What are you doing out here, Roger?"

"I can do what I want, Whitebeard"

"Why are you rushing through the Grand Line, do you want to die?"

Roger stared at Whitebeard for a moment. "Heh, I won't die… your crew on the other hand"

Naruto felt a familiar wave of power wash over him, before his world started to go dark. It was just like when he had met the old man, only this time Naruto knew what the wave of power was.

'_Haoshoku No Haki, dammit it's so strong' _he though before passing out

xox

Naruto awoke to the sounds of steel clashing, guns shooting, cannonballs exploding and pirates yelling.

'_Damn that bastard, he knocked me out'_, he though angrily, as he picked himself up off the deck

Naruto looked around to see pirates on both sides clashing on both ships and looked over to see his father and Gol D. Roger clashing on the whale figurehead of the Moby Dick. Sabre struck bisento, with each strike creating a small shockwave of power.

"oyaji" Naruto said with concern, he was just about to run over to assist when he here two voices from his left.

"Get ready Whitebeard, I'm coming for you"

"Wait Buggy, Roger-Sencho is fighting him"

Naruto looked over to see two of Roger's crew. One of them wore a white and red stripped short sleeved shirt with light green pants, pointy shoes, white gloves and a brown cap. He had a big red nose attached to a goofy looking face. He was holding three knives between his fingers in each hand.

The other one wore a black shirt with light coloured pants and wore and a straw hat with a red sash around it, resting atop a head of strait red hair. He was wielding two katanas.

Naruto stood in front of the two arguing pirates.

"I don't care, I'm going to rip that beard right off his face" the now named Buggy said

"Roger-Sencho will be mad if you get in his way" said the other

"Plus I'm not gonna let you get near him" Naruto added

The two pirates stopped arguing to look at the young blond, "Eh, who're you?" asked Buggy

"It doesn't matter who I am, stupid big nose, I told you I wasn't gonna let get near oyaji" answered Naruto

Buggy smirked, "You're no match for us kid and… WHO'RE YOU CALLING STUPID BIG NOSE, I'll show you"

Buggy charged at Naruto with his knives in hand, however Naruto, with more speed and skill than you'd expect from a five year old, blocked the knives with his cutlass and followed up with a quick horizontal slash that cut Buggy in half and cut off his right hand at the same time.

'_That was… easy'_ thought Naruto suspiciously as he watched the body parts fall to the ground

Naruto turned to the other pirate who had a calm look on his face, as if he didn't care at all that his nakama had been 'killed'.

"Don't you care that I did that to your nakama" asked Naruto

"No" he replied simply

A strange vision then told Naruto to jump out of the way. He complied and jumped to his right, just as a knife filled hand whizzed past him. Naruto stared at a floating hand, hovering a few feet away from him, with wide eyes.

'_What the shit, a floating hand, wait, must be-'_

Naruto turned to see the pirate he cut in two standing, well at least the bottom half of him was standing and the top half was floating just above it and Buggy with an angry look on his face.

Naruto though Buggy was angry because of what he'd done but this was proved wrong when the floating hand rushed over to the red haired pirate and grabbed the front of his shirt roughly.

"SHANKS" Buggy shrieked, "You flashy bastard, don't you care what he did to me"

"I didn't care because I knew you weren't dead" said an annoyed Shanks

"THAT'S NO EXCUSE, aren't I your nakama"

"Yes, but why would I get angry when I knew you were fine"

"Ah, excuse me, but how is your hand floating?" interrupted Naruto

"Eh, I ate the Bara Bara No Mi" explained Buggy as his hand reattached to his arm, before he turned to Shanks, "AND IT'S ALL YOUR FLASHY FAULT"

Turning back to Naruto, Buggy said, "No matter how many times you cut me, I won't die"

"Good to know" replied Naruto, before he rushed towards Buggy and nailed him in his big red nose with a right hook, sending him crashing into the railing.

Shanks looked from his now downed friend to the kid that knocked him out. He took a deep calm breath as he drew one of his swords.

"Well you're pretty good for a kid, but let's see how good you really are"

Shanks charged forward and brought his sword down on Naruto, who in turn caught it with his own. Naruto tried to push him back, but the strength of the older boy was greater than his own and he managed to shove Naruto back before charging at him again.

Naruto jumped back to avoid a cut across the chest and once again locked blades with Shanks. Now Naruto knew he wasn't stronger than Shanks, so he spun on his heel, slipped out of the blade lock and spun around Shanks until he was behind him and stealing his second katana out of its sheath before jumping up and bringing a foot to Shank's head.

Shanks quickly brought up his arm to block the kick without looking.

'_Kenbunshoku Haki'_ though Naruto with mild surprise

Shanks followed up his block by twisting around and punching Naruto in the face. Naruto fell to the deck holding his face in pain.

'_Shit, why does it hurt so much, is it Busoshoku No Haki?'_

Shanks didn't give Naruto time to rest however, as he brought his leg down on Naruto, who had to quickly roll out of the way. Naruto scrambled to his feet just in time to use the two swords he had to block powerful sword strike that sent him skidding further back.

"OYAJI" Naruto heard Marco yell

Naruto and Shanks looked over to where Whitebeard and Roger were fighting to see Roger with a bit of blood running down the side of his head and the old man clutching a very bloody chest. During their fight, Roger had managed to give Whitebeard a large cut in the middle of his chest.

"Oyaji" exclaimed a worried Naruto

Naruto threw Shank's sword at him to act as a distraction and ran towards the two captains. Shanks avoided the incoming sword and attempted to go after the young pirate however his path was blocked when Thatch stood in front of him and engaged him in a new battle.

Whitebeard stood up, still holding his chest as he at Roger stared at each other with matching grins.

"You should give up Whitebeard, you're injured"

"Heh, do you honestly think this little scratch is enough to beat me. It's going to take a lot more than that, ROGER"

The old man brought his weapon down on Roger's which triggered another round. Whitebeard would swing his enormous bisento and Roger would either avoid or block it with his cutlass.

Naruto stopped running towards the captains as another of the Roger Pirates stood in his way. This guy was different to Shanks and Buggy, he was much stronger than them. He was almost as tall as his captain, wearing a long dark blue coat and dark green pants. He had strawberry blond hair that was slicked back, a black striped beard on his jaw and had a scar running vertically over his right eye, over which he wore a pair of round glasses. He was the vice-captain of the Roger Pirates, 'Dark King' Slivers Rayleigh.

He stood in front of Naruto with his sword ready.

"I can't let you interfere with the captain's battle, kid" he said with a small smile

Naruto was in no mood for the interruption, so he leapt forward and brought his sabre down on the Dark King with all his might, only to be shocked when Rayleigh stopped Naruto's blade with his own, only needing one hand to withstand Naruto's 'might'.

Naruto attempted another slash, however Rayleigh simply sidestepped him before ducking under Naruto's attempted decapitation. Naruto was quickly becoming angry. Every sword swing, every punch and kick Naruto produced was avoided by Rayleigh with the utmost ease.

Rayleigh delivered a powerful kick to Naruto's chest sending him crashing into the main mast of the Moby Dick but before he could recover, Rayleigh was in front of him with his sword pointed at Naruto's forehead.

Naruto began to sweat slightly. He knew that Rayleigh could kill him before he could blink.

"W-Well then h-hurry up and do it" Naruto said, sounding a bit less brave than he wanted to

"Do what?" asked Rayleigh, smirking

"You're my enemy, right, you're gonna kill me"

"HAHAHAHAHA… don't be so grim, kid"

Naruto was surprised when Rayleigh sheathed his sword

"We may be on opposing pirate crews, but that is no reason for me to kill a five year old child. I watched your fight with Shanks and will admit you have a lot of potential, but until you reach it, you have to remember that you are in fact a five year old child. You still have a _very_ long way to go before you can challenge my captain"

Naruto let Rayleigh's words sink in before realising that he was right. He still had a very long way to go.

"Unfortunately though, I don't think you'll ever get a chance to fight Roger" finished Rayleigh

"Huh, what do you mean?" asked a confused Naruto

Naruto got an answer in the form of a fist that hit him in the face and knocked him out cold.

xox

Naruto woke up in a soft bed, with a roaring headache. The last thing he remembered was talking to Rayleigh and then-

'_Oh that bastard'_

Naruto stood up groggily and shuffled towards the door. As he opened it he was greeted by an evening sky and a cool sea breeze.

There were no more of the Roger Pirates in sight and the Whitebeard Pirates were sitting in the lowered part of the deck eating dinner. Naruto walked over to them gaining Marco's attention.

"Oh, look who's up"

"Yeah" Naruto sighed, "How long was I out"

"A few hours" said Marco gesturing to the mountain of food before the pirates, "You hungry?"

"Not really, I'll only get a little bit" said Naruto who had already covered two plates with piles of chicken, beef, bread, rice and some pies for dessert causing some of the other pirates to sweat drop and think, _'that's only a little bit?'_

It seemed that Naruto, like just about any other pirate in the world, had an enormous appetite.

Naruto looked over to Whitebeard, who was sitting in his huge chair, with a much larger than average mug of alcohol. Naruto also noticed the large medical patch on the old man's chest, where he'd received his cut from Roger.

"Mm mm…Oyaji, how's that cut you got?" asked Naruto with a mouth full of food

Whitebeard raised a perplexed eyebrow "What are you talking about?"

Naruto just pointed at the medical patch on Whitebeard's chest, causing him to look down at it

"Oh that, it's nothing, barely even a scratch" Laughed Whitebeard, causing Naruto to sweat drop

'_It'll probably leave a scar and he thinks it's just a scratch'_

"Ok, then what happened after I was knocked out, who won Oyaji or Roger" asked Naruto

"Well it was kind of a draw, since both of them would refuse to back down or run away" said Marco

"Haha, just as I thought would've happened" smiled Naruto

Whitebeard then finished his drink and slammed his mug down on the armrest of his chair.

"Naruto, I saw your fights with that red haired brat and that funny red nose and even the 'fight' with Rayleigh. I saw them and I've decided that you need more training.

"What are you saying Oyaji?" asked Naruto, having finished his dinner and moved on to his desert

Whitebeard got his mug refilled, "You can pull your weight on the ship when you can pull your weight in battle, from now on you can focus on your training.

xox

**(6 months later)**

Much had happened in the past six months. One of the most amazing of which was the Roger Pirates engaging the pirate fleet of Shiki The Golden Lion, in the New World. One ship against and enemy fleet of at least twenty. If Naruto had never seen Roger fight with his own two eyes, he never would have believed it. This battle became known as the Edd War.

It wasn't soon after that, that the Roger Pirates once again achieved the impossible and conquered the entire Grand Line and made it to the final island, Raftel.

After this, Roger became known as the 'Pirate King'.

It was also after becoming known as 'Pirate King' that the Roger Pirates vanished mysteriously. Soon after this, Whitebeard received a summons from Roger. Normally if Whitebeard received something like this, demanding he turn up somewhere like some rookie pirate, he would tear it up. However Whitebeard decided to go because of the amount of respect he had for Roger.

The Moby Dick dropped anchor off shore, allowing Whitebeard to jump off onto the beach.

"Do you want us to go with you, Oyaji?" asked Jozu

"No, I'll be fine by myself"

After a while, Naruto jumped onto the beach too, gaining everyone's attention.

"What are you doing, Naruto?" asked Thatch, "The old man said he didn't need anyone to go with him"

Naruto replied with a yawn. "I'm just gonna look for somewhere to sleep" as he headed off into the island

As Naruto walked through the island, he had to admit that Roger had picked a really nice place. There were flowing rivers and huge cherry blossom trees all around dropping pink petals that covered the ground.

During the last six months, Naruto had gotten older, taller, faster, stronger and smarter. He still had a very long way to go, but at least he was better with Kenbunshoku Haki and had got the basics of Busoshoku Haki down.

Naruto found a nice place to sleep atop a large waterfall.

"What's that, did you say you're dying, Roger?"

Naruto looked to the bottom of the waterfall to see the Old Man sitting opposite Roger, both with a large drinking dish full of sake and numerous more bottles around them. He was surprise to hear that the great Pirate King was dying.

"Yeah, I don't have much time left" said Roger, with his ever present grin

"Huh, that's too bad" said Whitebeard before drinking some sake

"Heh, you almost sound sad, Whitebeard"

"I still respect you, even though you were my enemy"

"I feel the same"

"Do you want me to tell you how to get to Raftel, Whitebeard?"

"You can if you want, but I won't go there. I'm not interested in it"

Roger finished his sake "Do you know what the World Government is calling me these days?"

"Gold Roger" Roger answered his own question

Whitebeard looked a bit confused, "What, isn't that your name?"

"No it's not" Roger laughed, "My name is Gol D. Roger"

"'D', I've met a few people with that in their names before, even one of my sons has it, Teach. What does it mean anyway?" asked Whitebeard, refilling his dish

"Ooh, you want to know?" smiled Roger

He took Whitebeard's silence as a yes

"Ok, I'll tell you. It's a story from long ago"

Naruto had become bored with the conversation and decided to go to sleep. He was woken up soon after by his father yelling.

"NARUTO, WE'RE LEAVING"

Naruto got up and sleepily shuffled toward the old man.

"Oyaji, what did Roger want to talk about?" he yawned

Whitebeard just smiled and said, "nothing important", before heading towards the ship

Naruto just shrugged and followed after.

(AN)

This is BijuBoss

The story is a bit of a slow start, but it'll get better soon (hopefully)

His name Rikiri will come from his devil fruit, and unfortunately it won't be a logia, even though that does sound cool to write

I haven't thought to much about the pairings, but I think Naruto will be like a ladies man, so maybe a harem, if you have your own thoughts then post them on the reviews

Expect the next chapter at some point


	3. Chapter 3: New Era

"talking"

'_thinking, flashbacks'_

xox

**(Loguetown, two years later)**

Today was a sunny day in Loguetown. Far too cheerful, considering the grim event that was scheduled in the town's plaza today. It was in this town, the very same one he was born in, that the infamous 'Pirate King' Gol D. Roger was to be executed.

It was an execution that demanded the attention of everyone in the world. It was an execution intended to strike fear into the hearts of all pirates and wannabe pirates. A message from the World Government and the Marines that piracy would not be tolerated under any circumstance. This is what the World Government intended the execution represent.

The citizens of Loguetown made way throughout the streets, as the Pirate King marched towards the plaza at the centre of the town. He marched with his head held high. No regret or fear, as if he was looking forward to it.

As Roger walked towards the execution platform, the crowd all started to move into the plaza until it was completely full. All faces with the plaza directed at the Pirate King climbing the stairs of the platform. As he got to the top, Roger turned to face the enormous crowd gathered to see his death. He dropped to his knees, his hands were chained to the platform he was kneeling on and he stared down, just in front of his hands, with his hair over shadowing his eyes.

One curious citizen in the crowd turned to his friend beside him.

"Oi, so are they just gonna kill him without even asking him anything?" he whispered

"How should I know? Besides what would they ask him anyway?" his friend whispered back

Well there was one thing he was wondering-

"OI, PIRATE KING" he shouted, making everyone in the plaza to shift their focus from Roger to him

Roger inclined his head a fraction to show that he was listening

"WHAT DID YOU DO WITH ALL OF YOUR TREASURE" he finished

This was a good question, one that everybody else wanted answered now to. Roger's grin once again made its way onto his face.

"My treasures?" his voice was calm, yet was heard by all in the plaza

"If you want them, you can have them" his voice and smile grew with every word

"LOOK FOR THEM. I LEFT IT ALL AT _THAT _PLACE…. ONE PIECE"

Those were Roger's very last words, as the next second two executioner's blades pierced his body, robbing him of his life. Roger however, could hardly call his life robbed at that point. He was still happy enough to die with a smile on his face. His grin never faltered, not even for a second.

The crowd was silent for a moment, as they allowed the Pirate King's last words sink in, before erupting into cheers and laughter. The chance to for adventure, the chance to conquer the Grand Line, the chance to find the greatest treasure in the world and become the next Pirate King was before them.

Less than a week later, the seas were swarmed with hundred, if not thousands, of new pirate crews. Crews all searching for the now legendary treasure.

xox

**(A few weeks later, Naruto age 8)**

Naruto was sitting on the railing of the Moby Dick, reading the newspaper he had subscribed to a little while ago. It wasn't today's paper, no he had read that earlier in the morning. This paper was from a few weeks ago, from the day of Gold Roger's execution. It was an article telling about Roger's bold claim of leaving an amazing treasure somewhere on the Grand Line and the starting of something the world government had dubbed 'The Great Age of Pirates'.

Naruto laughed as he read the article for the fifth time. He just couldn't get over how funny he found the whole situation. The World Government hoped to snuff out piracy for good with the death of the 'Pirate King', instead Roger goes ahead and pulls this, starting a new pirate era and causing countless pirate crews to be formed. The exact opposite of what, Naruto imagined, the Word Government wanted. It seemed that the Marines would really have their work cut out for them now.

Naruto looked at it once more before letting the wind catch the article and take it out to sea. He jumped off the railing and went to join the rest of his nakama, who were doing what they normally did. Eat, drink and do pretty much whatever they wanted. Naruto walked over the Old Man sitting in his chair, drinking his usual enormous amount of alcohol.

"So Oyaji, why are we going to Fishman Island?" he asked

"You mean apart from being the only way for us to get into the New World"

"uuuuuhhhhhhh-" replied Naruto, having honestly forgotten about that

Whitebeard sighed, "The king, Neptune, is an old friend of mine and I haven't seen him in a while". The old man paused to gulp down the rest of his drink, "Plus, lately I've heard some rumours about the island that are making me feel uneasy"

"Oh, like what?"

"Apparently with all the new pirate crews trying to enter the New World, they've been causing mayhem in Fishman Island, raiding houses and selling mermaids and fishmen into slavery".

"What, that sucks. It's disgusting", Whitebeard raised an eyebrow at his son's view on the matter.

"Plus I don't like that it happens after Roger died, it almost makes it seem like it's his fault".

"And why would you care what anyone would think of Roger?" Whitebeard smiled

"Uummm… Well… I dunno. Even though he was an enemy he was able to fight on the same level as you and even managed to scar you. He was strong and loyal to his nakama and never backed down from a fight, even when the odds were stacked way against him. I respect him, almost as much as I do you. Even though he was an enemy… I liked that guy"

Whitebeard couldn't help but laugh at that and think that, to a point, he felt the same way

xox

**(2 days later, Fishman Island)**

Naruto and the rest of the Whitebeard pirates were feasting in the Ryugu Palace, having their hunger and thirst satisfied by the many servants around the palace, while Whitebeard sat with King Neptune, drinking and talking about something that Naruto couldn't hear. He tried to get closer to listen in on the conversation but was having a hard time trying to get past the mermaids, who found the young pirate irresistibly cute and wouldn't leave him alone.

Whitebeard and Neptune were sipping from their equally enormous jugs of sake and noticing the blond's struggles with amused smiles.

King Neptune was a massive coelacanth merman that was even bigger than Whitebeard himself. He had a red nose, small beady eyes, very thick and long orange curly hair with a very thick and curly orange beard to match. He was bare chested and had on a gold crown, golden bracelets and carried a large, elaborate, golden trident.

"Hoh Hoh Hoh" He laughed as he watched Naruto give up trying to eavesdrop on them to attend to his meal and the pretty mermaids doting on him. "It seems that you have a very curious crew member, jamon"

"Huh, I'd call him nosy" replied Whitebeard.

"He's new. When did you recruit him? jamon"

"He's been one of my sons for a few years now and already he is showing a lot of promise"

"Oh? How so"

"He's actually a lot smarter than he looks. He absorbs information like a sponge and is already a better fighter than some others, because he can outsmart tougher opponents and plus he just has better battle instincts than most. He is only eight and already has a lot of experience as a pirate, but his real talent is his natural speed. He is a hell of a lot faster than any other eight year old"

Neptune looked over to the young pirate, who looked to be on his ninth bowl of ramen and smiled.

"It seems that the next generation will always surpass the last, jamon"

Whitebeard looked up from his drink, "Eh? What the hell are you talking about? It'll take a hundred years for him to reach my level. However his name will become famous I have no doubt about that".

The feast was interrupted when two of Neptune's royal soldiers came running into the hall in panicked and tired states.

"Naptune-sama, there's some pirate crews in the fishman district and mermaid cove. They're kidnapping fishman children and mermaids to be sold off"

"WHAT" Neptune yelled

Whitebeard brought his sake up and started drink the rest of it as his friend started to give orders.

"Quickly, send our forces down there to combat the pirates, jamon. We can't let them take even a single one. I will go down there myself to stop this if I have to, jamon. Quickly get Hoe ready-"

Neptune was cut off by the sound of Whitebeard slamming his now empty sake jug on the floor.

"No, don't worry about it I'll take care of them" Whitebeard rose and grabbed his bisento that was beside him before turning to his crew, "Let's go"

The Whitebeard Pirates were already brandishing their own weapons, having finished their food and drink as well and made for the giant doors of the Ryugu Palace. This kidnapping and slavery bullshit needed to end and the Whitebeard Pirates were going to make sure that it did, at least in Fishman Island.

xox

All throughout the fishman district and mermaid cove was chaos. Numerous pirates crews were sweeping through, taking mermaids, fishmen and merfolk children alike while the parents who tried to stop them were beaten or killed. Fishmen were naturally stronger than the human pirates but they were outnumbered and outgunned, as they were civilians.

"Hurry up, get those fishheads in the bags before the royal army gets here and remember to always make room for more mermaids. They go for B70, 000,000 on the slave market"

These were very stereotypical pirates. They were what sprang to the minds of most people when they thought of the very word. Foul, evil, mean, greedy, selfish and murderous. These 'pirates' were what the Whitebeard Pirates found themselves looking at when they arrived.

Naruto actually started to feel sick with rage when he saw the fishmen and merfolk crying and the pirates laughing as they destroyed families and lives just to make a quick buck. He wasn't the only one, he looked towards his nakama to see that they looked to be just as disgusted, if not more, than him. Whitebeard however had on a black look as he calmly walked towards the crow of amateurish, cowardly weaklings.

A pirate who was trying to force and crying mermaid into a large bag, suddenly heard huge sounding footsteps approaching from behind him. When they stopped he turned around slowly to see who, or what, could have made such heavy footsteps. As he turned, he grew paler with every second he spent looking up at the huge figure of Whitebeard, the Strongest Man in the World.

"Y-y-you're W-Whitebeard" he stammered in fear

Whitebeard looked down at the cowering fool with disgust and contempt.

"What do you think you're doing with these fishmen?" Whitebeard's voice calm yet laced with a very dangerous tone

"I-I-I d-don't" _'shit, what do I do, he's going to kill me anyway… but… wait if I bet him I'll become a legend, the only problem is how to bet him, h-he's huge and he was able to fight Gold Roger….. fuck it'_

He drew his sword and prepared to attack the pirate lord. However he wasn't able to take more than two steps towards Whitebeard, before his face met Naruto's fist, who in the blink of an eye had covered the distance between them. The pirate captain went flying backwards and hit a stone wall with enough force demolish it. Naruto cracked his knuckles and glared at the rest of the amateurish pirate crew, ready to pummel anyone else who tried to start something.

Whitebeard smirked at Naruto's display of speed and strength, it was impressive for an eight year old. Naruto stepped forward, intent on making those pirates experience as much pain as they were willing to inflict onto others. He was stopped however when Whitebeard stepped forward himself and slammed the bottom of his bisento into the ground, causing the earth around him and Naruto to crack and shake and some of the pirates to fall over.

Whitebeard stood before a large group of terrified pirates. He lifted his bisento over his head and formed a quake bubble around the blade before bringing it down on the pirates.

"GET OUT OF HERE YOU IDIOTS, YOUR NOT WELCOME IN MY FRIEND'S KINGDOM" he bellowed as the entire group was swept up, in the ground shaking explosion caused by the quake bubble. Whitebeard slammed his bisento into the ground again.

"FROM NOW ON, FISHMAN ISLAND IS PART OF MY TERRITORY"

Whitebeard stood there and let his words sink in. soon the pirate crews dropped all of the fishmen and mermaids they had captured before they ran to their ships, fearing for their lives.

One sentence.

That was all it took to secure safety from pirates looking to kidnap fishmen. Naruto couldn't help but smile at the irony, thanks to the action of a pirate, Fishman Island would from now on be safe from pirates.

All of the fishmen and merfolk who had heard Whitebeard's claim, and had seen the pirates run, started to cheer for the great pirate who had just saved their loved ones and ensured the protection of their home.

From then on, Whitebeard and his crew had become even more legendary. The news that Fishman Island was under the protection of the strongest man in the world had spread all over both halves of the Grand Line, North South East and West Blue seas, the Marine Headquarters at Marineford and the holy land of Mariejois. Fishman Island was off-limits to anybody who wanted to start trouble.

xox

**(2 years later, Naruto age 10)**

Naruto sat in the main mast's crow's nest reading the newspaper, with a very angry look on his face.

He was wearing a mesh short sleeve shirt under a white open jacket, with light brown cargo shorts and his trademark black sandals. His hair had grown a bit wild over the last two years, the bangs that framed his face had grown down to his chin and his hair reached his shoulders at the back.

The past two years had seen Naruto's strength improve immensely as well. Using Kenbunshoku Haki he could easily sense most incoming attacks if they weren't moving ridiculously fast and would be able to sense roughly the amount of people in one place. His Busoshoku Haki had improved by leaps and bounds. For any person, who did not use Busoshoku Haki themselves, to actually hurt him they would need to put a lot more force than normal in the strike and Naruto would be confident in fighting logia devil fruit user. At least he thought he would, he had yet to actually fight one. However even though his Haki had improved a lot, there was still definitely room for improvement. Naruto's weapon of choice was a cheap katana with a black handle, guard and sheath, it wasn't anything spectacular, he got it in some random town for about B5,000, so he expected it to break at any moment. He made the switch from sabre to katana because a katana felt better in his hand and his swordsmanship improved with one.

Another noticeable trait of Naruto's, was his intelligence. Whitebeard had noticed it the day he met him. Naruto downplayed it a lot and acted like a fool sometimes but in reality he was a genius. He could quickly come up the winning strategies in a fight and could usually outsmart an opponent that was physically stronger than him. His battle instincts were a hundred times better than you would expect from a ten year old kid.

The newspaper told a story about the 'might of the invincible marines'. Recently an island in the West Blue Sea had been destroyed by a Buster Call. A Buster Call was the World Government's ultimate display of force to ensure that Absolute Justice prevails. It entails ten marine battleships, led by at least five Vice-Admirals, bombarding a target nonstop until it has been completely annihilated. The name of the island that was destroyed was Ohara. Ohara wasn't a secret pirate base, nor was it planning to attack the World Government, it was simply an island mainly consisting of archaeologists and scholars.

Apparently the reason why the World Government found it necessary to destroy Ohara, was because the archaeologists were researching the forbidden Poneglyphs and (according to the media) were planning to use its knowledge to somehow create an ancient and powerful weapon in order to destroy the Word Government and conquer the world. Naruto didn't know the real reason why Ohara was destroyed, but he did know that the reason given by the media was total crap. He just didn't buy it.

Naruto continued reading as he noticed Thatch climb up to the crow's nest and hopped in to see what Naruto had been doing all evening.

"Hey Naruto, what are you doing?"

"Reading" he replied simply without looking up

"Oh really, what are you reading"

"Newspaper… listen to this" he said before reading the text of the article "The only survivor of the demon land Ohara was eight year old Nico Robin, who not only defied the World Government by surviving the Buster Call but by also destroying six marine battleships receiving a bounty in the process". Sure enough when Naruto turned the page a sheet of paper fell out and caught his attention.

It was a standard wanted poster with a picture of a sad looking girl with shoulder length black hair and blue eyes, underneath the picture it said:

'**Devil Child' Nico Robin**

**B79,000,000**

Naruto was furious as he looked at the wanted poster. How could the World Government call this 'Justice'? How could they give an eight year old girl that kind of bounty? It just solidified Naruto's belief that practically everyone in the marines and World Government was just some fat fucking moron who would gladly destroy people's homes and lives just so they can gain a higher rank or get some shiny piece of metal that they could staple to their chests. And they called pirates evil. It just pissed Naruto off.

Naruto looked at the poster sadly, "She'll be hunted for the rest of her life, poor girl"

Thatch didn't know what to say, so he opted to say nothing and stare out at the ocean. At first Thatch was just looking at nothing really, his eyes just wondered aimlessly without a focal point, until he was given one in the form of black smoke just managing to make itself visible on the not-to-distant horizon.

Thatch squinted his eyes in an effort to focus better. "Hey Naruto, what does that look like to you?"

Naruto stood up and turned to look in the same direction as his nakama.

"Mmmmm… smoke, I think"

"I thought as much", said Thatch before yelling down towards the deck, "OYAJI, LOOK OVER THERE. I THINK THERE IS AN ISLAND WHERE THAT SMOKE IS COMING FROM"

Whitebeard rose from his giant chair and walked to the portside railing. Looking past the vast blanket of blue that lay before him, he did notice the smoke and remembered that there was in fact an island near there. He also remembered _that_ particular island was part of Kaido's territory. Whitebeard had never planned to even get close to that island because he would really prefer not to have to fight that guy. Whitebeard was of course in no way scared or intimidated by him, it's just that he was no rookie pirate and would be capable of holding his own against the Whitebeard Pirates.

Yet despite of all this.

"HEAD TOWARDS THAT ISLAND, I WANT TO SEE WHAT IS GOING ON THERE" he shouted as his crew set about following his orders. Naruto didn't know why the Old Man had decided to go check it out, he had been part of the Whitebeard Pirates long enough to know that the Old Man didn't do anything without reason, that's where he differed with Gold Roger. Maybe he was curious, maybe he was generally concerned about the inhabitants of the island or maybe he was just bored. Naruto didn't know and he didn't really care, because truth be told he was bored to.

xox

The Whitebeard Pirates stepped onto the shore of the island and Naruto could already taste the disgusting ash in his mouth, there was obviously a village on this island. A village that was burning. Whitebeard began to walk in the direction of the fire, with his bisento at the ready, followed closely by his sons.

As they advanced towards the village they started to hear screaming and they noticed that the sky was now black with all the ash in the air, as well as there being reddish hue not too far off, most likely from the now confirmed fire.

When they finally reached the village they found all of the wooden houses and buildings ablaze with pirates, most likely belong to Kaido's pirate crew, running amuck. Quickly raiding burning shops and houses for any valuables, feeding the fires with precious belongings of the villagers and making sport of the villagers themselves. Who could kill the most, who could kill one the quickest or the most painful way.

Naruto hated pirates like them, they were the very image of 'pirate' the World Government put forward to the public and because of pirates like them, decent pirates like them would always be initially feared and hated.

It was when Naruto saw a pirate shot a fleeing villager in the back, and seeing the villager's wife and child look on in horror as the pirate laughed, that Naruto's rage exploded. He raced towards the pirate like a bullet, and before the pirate even saw him coming his heart had been pierced by Naruto's katana. The pirate's brain didn't even have time to register what had happened before he was dead. He fell to the ground as Naruto calmly withdrew his sword from the body. Two other pirates, who accompanied the first, stared at Naruto with a mixture of shock, confusion and anger.

"Hey kid, what the hell did you do" one demanded

"What does it look like" replied Naruto facing away from them

"You little piece of shit, I'll fucking kill-"

He was cut off from his threat as a streak of blue flames flew towards him. When the flames were less than a foot away from him, a leg materialized out from them and delivered a devastating kick to the side of the pirates head. The kick was enough to send the pirate crashing through a brick wall twenty feet away, most likely killing him.

The last terrified pirate drew his sword shakily and was so distracted by the two blonds that he didn't notice the diamond covered forearm behind him.

"**Brilliant Punk"**

Jozu's diamond body smashed into the prate sending him crashing into the same wall as his nakama in the same state. Despite his size, Jozu could move very fast when he needed to. Marco turned to Naruto with a slightly annoyed look on his face.

"Oi Naruto, don't go running off like that."

"Don't worry about that Marco, Naruto can easily handle guys like them", the three turned to see Whitebeard walking up to them. He took a moment to think before, "Alright this is a large town so there is probably a lot of them, split up and take them out, but if you see Kaido don't fight him. I'll be looking for him myself. ALRIGHT GO"

The crew yelled in understanding before splitting up. Before too long, Naruto found himself in the village's markets where there was a large number of pirates fighting with an equally large number marines. This surprized Naruto. _'Marines, what the hell are they doing here. If they know that Kaido might be here, then they are most likely being led by an Admiral or at least a Vice-Admiral'._

Naruto was pulled from his thoughts when he sensed an incoming blade to the neck, which he skilfully dodged, and countered, drawing his own blade and driving it into his enemy's stomach. As the pirate fell to the ground, dead, Naruto's actions had drawn the attention of two nearby marines. They looked at Naruto curiously.

"Is he one of Kaido's men?" one asked the other

"I don't think so, he just killed one of them, but he also doesn't look like a local" the other replied before yelling to Naruto, "OI KID, WHO ARE YOU, YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE. ARE YOU A LOCAL?"

"No" replied Naruto simply, "I'm a Whitebeard Pirate" he finished with a hint of pride

"What, you mean to say that W-Whitebeard is here too" yelled the marine, to which Naruto nodded.

"What are we going to do n- urck"

The unfortunate marine's sentence was cut short when a medium sized red curved blade erupted from his chest. He looked shocked for a split second as blood poured from the wound. Mercifully he was spared any more pain as he was dead a second later. He felt forwards onto the ground revealing the weapon sticking out of his back. It was a red three bladed scythe, with the three blades being smaller from top to bottom. It had quite a long handle that had tape around most of it for a better grip and had a thick black cable attached to the bottom of it, leading off somewhere.

Both Naruto and the remaining marine were shocked when they saw the large scythe. Naruto had not seen the attack coming, probably because it wasn't intended for him. Before the marine could do anything, the mystery assailant leaped in front of him and delivered a powerful left haymaker to the marines left temple, leaving the marine dazed. The assailant took the opportunity to rip his scythe out of the dead marine and drive all three blades into the remaining marine. The assailant finished the grim spectacle by ripping his scythe out of the now very dead marine, shredding the poor bastard's body in the process.

As the mystery assailant straightened up Naruto got a good view of his face. He looked to be about nineteen or twenty. He had medium length silver hair that was slicked back and very distinctive purple eyes. He wore dark blue pants with a red and black vest and closed shoes. He also had two large spools attached to his left hip, these held the thick black cable, that was attached to his scythe, around them. He looked down at the mangled corpses that use to be marines with a wicked, borderline insane, smile.

"YAAHOO. I got those fucking stupid marines" he exclaimed with glee before turn his attention to Naruto. "Huh? Who the hell are you?"

Naruto said nothing as he glared at the silver haired man. Naruto may not like marines, but that didn't mean he though that they deserved to die like that.

"Hey, fucking brat, I asked you a question, hurry up and answer before I kill you" the man said impatiently

Naruto took a deep breath, he already decided that he didn't like this guy. "I'm Naruto, I would ask you what your name is but since I'm going to kill you now, I don't really care" he stated calmly, drawing his sword.

"Huh? What was that? Don't you know who I am, I'm 'Grim Ripper' Hidan. I've got a bounty of B130,000,000, and you're just some weak fucking kid, you can't beat me" he finished with a sick grin.

"If I couldn't beat some psychopath like you, I wouldn't be able to call myself a Whitebeard Pirate" Naruto replied

Hidan didn't show even the least bit of surprise when he heard that Naruto was a Whitebeard Pirate. "Well then if you really think that you can kill me… THEN LETS SEE YOU DO IT" he yelled before he grabbed his scythe's cable and swung it in a vertical ark towards Naruto.

Naruto quickly ducked under the scythe. Good thing too. That scythe would have cut him clean in half if it hit. Naruto wasn't ready for the speed of it, and he certainly wasn't ready Hidan's speed to match. In what seemed like a heartbeat, Hidan had closed the gap and drove his knee into Naruto's chin, sending him flying back. Hidan quickly followed this up with another ark, this time a high horizontal one, set on cleaving him in two lengthways.

Naruto managed to recover from the knee in the chin and just managed to get out of the scythe's way. Hidan charged at Naruto again with his fist cocked back. Naruto however was ready for him this time and brought up his free left hand to guard against the punch. Naruto followed up by thrusting his katana at Hidan's neck. Hidan swiftly moved his head to the side causing Naruto to just cut the side of his neck a little. Hidan then quickly rapped the scythe's cable around the blade before driving his foot into Naruto's side sending him flying back again and lose the grip on his sword in the process.

Naruto skidded back and took a knee. He gingerly touched where he had been kicked. He winced slightly at the sting he felt, indicating one or two broken ribs. Naruto looked back a Hidan who was bleeding from the side of his neck. Hidan freed Naruto's sword from the cable before tossing it away without a second thought and once again charging at Naruto.

Naruto knew all he could do without a weapon was dodge. He managed to roll, flip, jump and scramble out of the way of all of Hidan's attacks. The use of Kenbunshoku Haki made it much easier. Hidan tried another wild slash at Naruto, to which he jumped out of the way again and jumped backwards still until there was some distance between them. Naruto ignored his pained ribs, there would be time to worry about pain later.

'_Shit, this guy is as fast as he is strong, and judging by the way he moved his head to avoid having his throat cut, he can most likely use Kenbunshoku Haki'_ Naruto looked around and spotted his katana by a food shop window, _'If I can get to it I can properly defend myself'_

Hidan smirked at Naruto, "I have to say, you're much stronger than any other kid I've killed. I can tell by how you dodged my attacks that you know how to use Kenbunshoku Haki, but you're not the only one who has been taught Haki, I was taught by my captain Kaido"

"Good for you" said Naruto uninterested. Naruto's mind was more focused on 'could I get to my sword before Hidan'.

Hidan started to slowly walk towards Naruto, when he was surprised by a building near him exploding. He was so focused on the fight that he forgot that the whole town was ablaze. However that brief distraction was exactly what Naruto needed. He used the brief second of confusion to dart towards his sword.

As Naruto barely reached the handle of his sword he felt Hidan's presence behind him. Naruto knew that Hidan was a second away from bringing that huge triple-bladed scythe down on him. As he gripped his sword's handle, he spun around in desperation and swung his sword while infusing his sword with as much Busoshoku Haki as his current skill level allowed.

Imagine the surprise of Naruto and the shock of Hidan as they both watched Hidan's left hand drop off from his forearm and fall to the ground, along with the scythe it was holding. They both did nothing as they saw it hit the ground. Hidan did nothing for a few seconds, until the shock wore off slightly and he realised the seriousness of the situation. Hidan started breathing heavily as he stared at Naruto with a furious look on his face. Before Naruto could do or say anything, his face was painfully introduced to Hidan's Haki infused foot.

Naruto was sent flying into the burning shop behind him, in the same sort of way that a cannonball is sent flying from a cannon. He crashed through walls and shelves before he hit a huge container of fruit in the store room.

Hidan was about to go in after him but a support beam in the store's roof fell down, blocking his entry. He thought about finding another entrance but then thought that he was either dead or paralysed from that kick and as he felt the heat from the flames he thought _'What better way for that little shit to suffer, than to be burned alive. At least I hope he's alive so he can fell his skin melt off of him'_.

Hidan smirked at the thought, before felling the pain coming from the end of his forearm. _'Holy shit, if I don't stop this blood loss I really will die'_ he thought worriedly. He looked around and noticed a sign made of thin sheet metal near him, _'that'll work' _he thought as he picked it up and put it just over a smaller cluster of flames. Hidan waited until the sign was red hot and took a very deep breath before stabbing his stump at the red hot surface.

"**FFFFFFF-"**

xox

Vista and Teach were dealing with some low ranking pirates when they heard:

"**UUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKK KKKKKKKKKKKK"**

"What the hell was that?" asked a bewildered Teach

"I don't know but I think everyone in the village heard it" replied Vista

xox

True to Vista's word, just about everyone in the village heard it, even over all of the fighting at chaos. This of course included Naruto, who was just regaining his consciousness, he heard Hidan screaming but he didn't really understand why. Naruto just lay on the ground in a slightly delirious state. It wasn't until Naruto felt the heat around him that he remembered that he was in a burning building and forced himself into a sitting position. He looked around and noticed that he was surrounded by delicious looking pairs.

'_Huh, it's a shame all of these pairs are going to go to waste, maybe I could save all of them….wait, what. Dammit Naruto get a grip I need to find a way to get out here and…. what the fuck is that?'_

Naruto picked up a misshapen pair that he noticed. It was bright orange, instead of the light green of the others, it was also almost twice the size of a regular one and it had white spiral marks all around it and a long, curly red stem to complete the look.

'_Weird looking pair… no, wait… pair don't look like that' _ Naruto gathered all of his mental energy to try and snap himself out of hid delirious state and refocused on the fruit. _'It's a devil fruit, w-what are the chances I would find one here and now'_

Naruto pondered whether or not he should eat it. If he did eat it then he wouldn't be able to swim ever, but that fact never really bothered him, he never could really swim very well. The real question was, 'what power will this grant me'. If it was something cool and powerful than no problem but if it was something shithouse then it didn't seem worth it.

However the hungry and impatient flames around him forced his hand.

Naruto made up his mind and took a bite of the fruit.

(AN)

This is BijuBoss

I know it's kind of a dick move leaving it there but I'll try and bring out the next chapter quicker

If you are wondering, I made Naruto a bit older because I'm kind of sick of seeing stories where Naruto is younger than the Straw Hats, or the same age as he is in cannon Naruto

His devil fruit is a paramecia and I'll explain it in the next chapter and hopefully you'll find it plausible

Thank you for all of your positive reviews, I really like reading them and it makes all of the writing worthwhile.

BijuBoss out.


	4. Chapter 4: The Strange Fruit

"talking"

'_thinking, flashbacks'_

xox

_Previously:_

_Naruto pondered whether or not he should eat it. If he did eat it then he wouldn't be able to swim ever. The real question was, 'what power will this grant me'. If it was something cool and powerful than no problem but if it was something shithouse then it didn't seem worth it._

_However the hungry and impatient flames around him forced his hand._

_Naruto made up his mind and took a bite of the fruit._

xox

Naruto had to fight a combined feeling of severe nausea and dizziness as he slowly stood up. He had heard that devil fruits taste bad, but no one had told him that they taste terribly, unbelievably bad. Naruto regained his composure, he knew that very soon the burning building he was in was going to collapse. As Naruto straightened up fully he felt another wave of sickness wash over him. It was probably a mix of the concussion and the devil fruit.

Naruto would have spent more time pondering which fruit he ate, but once again the heat around him encouraged him to find an exit, fast. The only thing was, there was no exit. The only way into the store room was its front doorway, but that was blocked by fire and debris. Naruto scanned the room, only to find that he surrounded by brick walls.

'_Who the hell designed this stupid store… fine then, if I can't find an exit, I'll make one'_

Naruto approached the back wall of the store room. An explosion behind him rocked Naruto's senses forcing him to get on with it. Naruto cocked his fist back. If he wasn't so distracted or still slightly dazed, he would have noticed the strange feeling in his fist and forearm, he would have seen what was surrounding his fist and forearm and he would have heard the strange sound just before his fist connected with the wall.

What he did notice however, was that his fist went right through the brick wall with his arm following behind, going right up to his bicep. Naruto pulled his arm out of the hole to reveal that he had punched right through the four inch thick brick wall. The flames started to creep in, so Naruto decided to question it later and launched another punch at the wall, with the same result. Naruto punched and kicked the wall until there was a hole big enough for him to squeeze through. Naruto managed to get out as the store room was engulfed. He sat in the alleyway, between the back of the store and the back of another building, catching his breath. He looked around to find that he was alone in the alleyway, so decided to take this time to catch his breath and regain his bearings, as well as try to answer a whole lot of questions.

Naruto knew that at his current level of strength, and in the condition he was in, it should have taken at least two or maybe even three, punches to make a hole like he did with that first punch. Not only that, but when he did throw that first punch he remembered just how little resistance he felt. Naruto brought his hands up in front of his face to see that his bones weren't broken, nor was the skin. There were a few scratches, but aside from them, you would never guess that these hands had just punched through a brick wall. Naruto quickly concluded that this was probably a result of his newly acquired devil fruit powers, so he started focusing on trying to change his body. At this point he didn't know if his fruit was a paramecia, zoan or logia, so focusing on any kind of change was, what he guessed, the first thing to do.

It turns out that Naruto didn't have to concentrate very hard or for very long, as just after he started focussing, he saw small streams of what looked like lightning arcing between his fingers. He could feel the lightning traveling through his hands, it didn't hurt or anything like that, but he felt like he could _feel _every volt in his hands. Naruto smiled in amazement and childlike awe as he focused on the lightning more, causing it to amplify and dance around his hands. Naruto amplified the lightning more and more until eventually his whole arm had lightning arcing off of it. Suddenly Naruto gave the lightning a little _push_, it was like he willed the lightning off of his arm and into an open space. The lightning bolt hit the wall of the building in front of him and travelled all over its surface until Naruto cut the power.

Naruto stood up, feeling better than he was a few minutes ago, and walked over to inspect the wall. Where ever his lightning had travelled over was black and charred like it had been burnt and in some places the wall was chipped or cracked. To Naruto this meant that his lightning had potential destructive capabilities. Little did Naruto know, but his lightning had and enormous amount of potential, destructive or otherwise.

Naruto made his way out of the alleyway, with a huge smile on his face. He was _very_ happy with his devil fruit.

xox

Hidan slowly walked through the burning streets with a, less than happy, look on his face. After he had cauterized his wound, he tore off his vest and wrapped it around the stump. If he had ever been in more pain than he was now, then he couldn't remember. Hidan dragged his scythe along the ground as he honestly couldn't be bothered to put in the effort needed to lift it onto his shoulder. The pain radiating from the end of his left forearm was unreal and was putting him in a more sadistic mood than normal. Hidan decided to leave his left hand where it was, mainly because he didn't think he would be able to get it to a doctor to be reattached quickly enough, and even if he did, he had already cauterized the wound making it impossible to reattach.

Hidan tried to block the pain out by focusing on cursing the kid who had done it. Every second he spent thinking about his dumb blond hair or his stupid smug little face, he grew angrier and started to regret kicking him into the burning store. Hidan continued through the streets hoping to find someone or at least something to kill as it cleared his mind and was when he was the most happy.

His wish was go be granted sooner than he though, apparently. Hidan had found his way into a small courtyard, where he spotted some of his 'nakama'(he had never given much thought to the word and didn't really care about the people who sailed with him) in the centre of the courtyard. There was about twenty of them, all surrounding a group of about fifteen prisoners, marines, villagers and even Whitebeard Pirates alike. Hidan smirked as he walked over to them.

"Oi, what the hell are you guys doing here" he demanded

The pirate he had directed the question to turned to face him with a slightly scared look on his face, "H-Hidan, what are you doing here"

"Huh? I asked you first, dipshit. Now tell me what the fuck you guys are doing"

The pirate looked even more scared now. Hidan was known for attacking lower ranking pirates of the same crew he was on when they annoyed him. "Uh w-we were just watching these prisoners, just in case we get surrounded by the marines or Whitebeard Pirates and need to use them as bargaining chips… or something" he explained adding the last part quietly

Hidan smirked again, "Oh yeah… and whose idea was this?"

"Uh… Mine-", Hidan proceeded to swiftly decapitate the man without remorse or guilt

Everyone else watched in shock and horror. Hidan's complete disregard for human life was unbelievable, even for a pirate.

"When you are surrounded by the enemy, you do not bargain for your life" Hidan spoke up with his insane smile, "YOU KILL AS MANY AS YOU CAN BEFORE YOU DIE"

Hidan started cackling madly as everyone around thought, _'this guy's a fucking lunatic'_

"HIDAN" a voice rang out through the courtyard

Hidan stopped laughing and turned to see someone he thought to be dead. At first his demeanour went from insane to angry, but then it turned into happiness and sheer delight, because the kid he had been dreaming about killing since he lost his hand, was standing in front of him.

Naruto had lost his white jacket, so he was just wearing his mesh shirt, slightly ripped pants and his sandals. The left side of his face as covered in blood from his previous encounter from Hidan. He looked over at the prisoners behind Hidan and grew a little worried when he saw three of his nakama in the group.

There were three Whitebeard Pirates in the group who immediately recognised Naruto. They stared at him as he stared back. Naruto noticed Kaido's pirates slowly surrounding him, but he didn't take his eyes off his nakama

"Well, I'm surprised that you're alive, but I'm also happy that you are. This way I get to rip you apart myself" Hidan's voice rang out

Naruto looked up at Hidan, "look if you want me then here I am, but just let them go, all of them. They don't have anything to do with our fight"

"Are you stupid, I know that they don't have anything to do with our fight, but that doesn't mean that I care about them. If I want to kill these fuckers, then I will" Hidan raised his scythe to the neck of one of the Whitebeard Pirates, "and to start I think I'll kill your nakama first"

Naruto heard one of his nakama speak up, "Naruto, get out of here, this guy is too strong for you-", he was cut off as Hidan backhanded him

Naruto grew visibly worried and slightly panicked, "Wait, stop… l-let's just talk for a second"

Hidan smirked, "I don't think so… you guys hold him back" he ordered

Two pirates behind Naruto grabbed his arms preventing him from going any further. Naruto didn't even look at them as he discharged his electricity through the arms they were holding, sending out a large stream of lightning, electrocuting them. The pirates couldn't even scream, their muscles tensed up and they lost control of their bodies until Naruto stopped. Both pirates fell to the ground, either dead or unconscious, their bodies burnt and black smoke coming off of them. Hidan looked shocked at this.

"You little shithead, you had the power of a devil fruit this whole time"

"No, I just-" Naruto tried to explain

"I'll show you to make and idiot out of me" Hidan yelled as he raised his scythe over his head with the intent on bringing it down on Naruto's nakama

"Wait, Stop" Naruto yelled. He tried to run at Hidan, but Hidan's nakama where blocking his path. Hidan didn't stop.

"STOP" he yelled again, but to no avail. Naruto scrunched his eyes shut in anger and frustration

"I SAID…. **STOOOOP**"

Naruto felt something weird come over him. It felt familiar, yet a bit different. When Naruto didn't hear any sounds of blood spraying, pained screams or even insane laughter, he opened his eyes. He looked at all of Hidan's nakama, they all had dull looks in their eyes. They stood in place stupidly for a single second before they all started falling to the ground. With the exception of Naruto and Hidan, everyone in the courtyard had been knocked out. Hidan was staring at Naruto, even more shocked than before.

'_That kid, there's no way that he has that' _he thought

Naruto himself was also shocked at what just happened, _'w-was that the… Haoshoku No Haki'_

Hidan continued staring at Naruto. He felt a small bead of sweet roll down to side of face and noticed that he was shaking slightly, this meant that he had been affected by Naruto's Haki. Hidan took a deep breath to calm himself down, he looked at Naruto again and steeled his resolve.

"I can't believe that a child like you just used Haoshoku No Haki" he stated very calmly, "plus now that I think about it, it's even obvious to a dumbass like me that you only ate your devil fruit just a little while ago, because if you had its power during our first fight then you definitely would have used it" Hidan rested his huge scythe on his shoulder, still looking very calm, "I have to kill you know. Not just because you cut off my hand, however I am going to skin you alive for that. I also have to kill you because you pose a huge future threat to me and my captain. Prepare yourself"

Hidan bolted at Naruto not a second later. Naruto dived to the right, just avoiding Hidan, he ended the dive with a roll, picking up a pistol from a downed pirate while he did so. Naruto quickly whipped around, aimed at Hidan's head and fired. Hidan simply leaned his head to the left allowing the bullet to go harmlessly past him. Naruto then performed a backflip to narrowly avoid the blades that where coming down on him. Hidan continued to hack and slash away in the hopes of hitting Naruto, while Naruto avoiding every swing with perfectly timed precision, it was almost an exact replay of their first fight, so that's when Hidan decided to mix it up.

Hidan started using the scythe's weight to act as a counter for his own body weight, making his swings much faster and wilder. Naruto was able to dodge most of them, but eventually Hidan just managed to cut along the top of his left shoulder, it wasn't even to really hurt Naruto but it was enough for him to break his focus. Hidan took advantage of the opportunity and delivered a kick to Naruto's chest. Naruto stumbled back and looked ahead just in time to see Hidan in front of him, scythe raised high, with his insane smile. Thinking quickly Naruto moved inside Hidan's guard and grabbed his right forearm, and before Hidan could do anything, electrocuted him. Hidan yelled in pain before Naruto kicked him in the stomach sending him back.

Hidan stabbed his scythe into the ground to slow himself down. He glared at Naruto as small streams of smoke came off his electrified body.

'_This FUCKING KID, how dare he do this shit to me' _he thought angrily, he continued to glare as Naruto discarded his shredded shirt and picked up a katana from an unconscious pirate that was near him. Hidan stared at his wrapped left stump, _'he cuts off my hand, finds a devil fruit and discovers that he has Haoshoku Haki, just to annoy me, and he doesn't even have the common courtesy to die.' _Hidan closed his eyes and started to shake in fury.

"Oi, I'm getting bored with this fight, let's hurry it up" he heard Naruto's voice say

Hidan could hear the slight arrogance in Naruto's voice. Now that Naruto had a devil fruit that he could use in close quarter combat with a great effect, Hidan was now at a disadvantage. He knew it and Naruto knew it.

"There's no way-" Hidan started

"Mmm?" questioned Naruto

"There's no way, I GONNA LOSE TO A GUY LIKE YOU" Hidan screamed before leaping towards Naruto with his scythe held high

Naruto's face hardened as he leapt towards Hidan meeting him in mid-air. They clashed and landed at opposite ends of the courtyard. The area was filled with silence until the sound of half of Hidan's scythe hitting the ground was heard.

Hidan looked down to see that he was only holding a quarter of the scythes handle in his hand. The rest of it was on the ground still attached to the scythe. Naruto had cut through the scythe's handle and into Hidan, leaving a large cut that ran over his right bicep, over his stomach and ending at the left side of his hip. Hidan coughed up blood as he turned to see the damage he had done, but was shocked when he saw. There was nothing. Naruto came out of that encounter without so much as a scratch.

"H-how did y-you-?" he stammered, mainly from the pain he was in

Naruto turned around to reveal his blade, hands and forearms shone with a jet black colour. Hidan realised then how Naruto beat him, Busoshoku Haki. Naruto didn't even need to use his devil fruit, he was just the better haki user.

Naruto took a deep breath as he threw his sword away. He stared at Hidan with an emotionless face and stuck his right hand out to the side. Hidan smiled as he watched Naruto start charging his lightning his hand. It was different from before, this time the lightning looked much more focused and seemed to originate from his fingertips and the palm of his hand. Hidan wasn't scared at all, he knew what was coming. He was of no use to anyone now. The lightning arced off into the ground, but always remained focused in Naruto's hand.

"Hey kid, I forgot, what was your name again?" Hidan asked smirking

"Naruto" was the reply

A second later Naruto closed the gap between himself and Hidan with his lightning covered hand cocked back.

"**Raikiri" **he yelled, Raikiri being the first name he could think of.

Naruto thrust his hand at Hidan's chest. The lightning allowed his hand to go right through skin, muscle and bone. Lightning screeched as Naruto's hand erupted out of Hidan's back. Naruto's attack had completely pulverized Hidan's heart. Hidan cough out an enormous amount of blood as Naruto quickly yanked his hand back through Hidan's body.

"Raikiri no Naruto… sounds pretty good" Hidan mumbled weakly before collapsing to the ground dead.

xox

Naruto stared at Hidan's unmoving body with an emotionless look. Sure Hidan was a homicidal maniac and it was probably a good think that he was dead, but that didn't make Naruto enjoy killing him. Naruto only killed those who, have no regard for other people and revel in other people's misery and suffering.

'_Well, it's time to get out of here' _he thought before remembering his nakama. He turned to the unconscious group of captives to see them still lying there, dead to the world. Naruto walked over to them and attempted to wake them.

"Oi, you guys. Get the hell up, we need to go find Oyaji and the others" he said, kicking them in the sides, eventually managing to wake them up.

"Huh? Naruto, what do you want?" one of them yawned, he then remembered what situation he was in before being knocked out, "Wait, what happened, where's that guy with one hand, how-" he then noticed Naruto's calm face.

"What happened here Naruto?" he asked

"You were captured by Kaido's men, along with these marines and villagers. After that I assume Hidan found his way here and almost killed you, that's when I got here" Naruto started

"Yeah I remember that, but I mean were we knocked out"

"Um, well, uh I kind of did that… sorry" Naruto laughed sheepishly rubbing the back of his head

"Wait how do you mean you knocked was out, that would mean… w-wait Naruto, do you have the Haoshoku no Haki?" the pirate asked bewildered.

"Yep" Naruto asked simply, "I also found a really cool devil fruit". This was demonstrated by lightning crackling around Naruto's hand.

"Woah, that's amazing. Which fruit did you eat?" he asked

"Uh, I don't know" Naruto started, "I think it's-"

"The Biri Biri no Mi" a new gruff voice interrupted

The Whitebeard Pirates all turned to see who had said that. They instantly saw that he was a high ranking marine from his long marine coat that had the word 'justice' on the back. The man seemed to be in his early thirties and wore a simple dark red suit and a marine cap under a hood that obstructed most of his face, but from what Naruto could see, the man had a stern no-nonsense disposition. This man was no ordinary marine, he was dressed far too well and he seemed to radiate an aura of power.

"What was that?" Naruto asked cautiously, already mentally preparing himself for another fight

"You ate the Biri Biri no Mi. It's a fruit that allows you to amplify and manipulate the natural bio-electricity in your own body. It's the paramecia counterpart of the Goro Goro no MI, the logia fruit that allows one to create, control and become lightning at will. Your fruit shouldn't be as destructively powerful as the Goro Goro no Mi, but I imagine it could be as dangerous if applied properly." The man explained calmly

'_Okay, this guy must have read some book describing devil fruits, but who is he'_. Naruto didn't like the feeling this guy was giving off. He started sweating a bit, did this guy have the Haoshoku or was I because it had become really hot all of a sudden. The fires around the courtyard had died down as Naruto fought Hidan, but when this guy turned up he seemed to reignite them somehow.

"Um Okay, thank you, now if you don't mind, we'll just be going now" Naruto said

"You're not going anywhere" the man countered firmly

"Oi, who the hell do you think you are?" one of Naruto's nakama asked angrily, "you can't stop us from leaving, we're Whitebeard Pirates"

The man gave no response as he started to walk calmly towards them. With every step Naruto could feel the temperature rise and his fear grow.

"Who are you?" Naruto finally asked

"I am Sakazuki, I'm a marine Vice-Admiral. It's my duty to end the threat of piracy in the name of Absolute Justice. I won't let you escape because I have to end you" he explained sternly

"Just try it" yelled one of the Whitebeard Pirates, as he leapt at the now named Sakazuki

The pirate drew his sword and attempted to cut down the marine, but the Vice-Admiral simply stepped inside his guard and delivered a devastating punch to the face that sent the pirate flying back through a few brick walls and into a burning building. The other two, in a fit of rage both charged at Sakazuki before Naruto could stop them. Naruto could tell that none of them had a chance of defeating this guy. This was proven as Naruto felt an enormous wave of heat hit his nakama in front of him, and as they fell to the ground, Naruto could see how they were killed.

The bodies of his nakama were burnt and deformed beyond recognition. Their skin had either melted or was burnt black and their charred corpses were still on fire. Naruto glared at Sakazuki with hatred. Those pirates were his nakama, and they had just been killed in a horrible way.

Naruto's hand exploded with lightning as he tried to make himself look as intimidating as possible to the marine, to no avail. Sakazuki stared at Naruto without fear.

"You think that I can be beaten with silly little tricks like that. You're just a child hiding in the shadow of an old pirate lord and that's where you will always be. You'll never be anything more than a peon" he said, trying to play on Naruto's anger

Naruto let his lightning die down as a smirked, "Do you really expect me to believe that. I am so much more to the old man, we all are. We will never be seen as peons"

"Then what are you?" countered Sakazuki

Naruto dropped into a fighting stance, "we are his sons"

Naruto then charged at Sakazuki, with his hand cocked back, ablaze with lightning.

"**Raikiri"** he yelled as his hand tore through Sakazuki's torso. Naruto's speed at power allowed him to go right through Sakazuki and end up behind him. At first Naruto wondered if he had actually beat him, but then scraped that thought because that would have been way to easy. It was then that Naruto felt a pain in his hand. He looked at his hand to see that it had been burnt. Naruto spun around to see Sakazuki still facing away from him, although the left side of his chest was gone and his left arm was on the ground.

It was when Sakazuki turned around to reveal his calm and untroubled face that Naruto realised, Sakazuki was a logia.

"I can see that you realised that I have eaten a logia devil fruit, I ate the Magu Magu no Mi" Sakazuki explained as the left side of his chest and left arm reformed from magma, while the discarded arm on the ground dissolved into manga. "Now you can understand why you can't beat me. Logia are the mightiest of all devil fruits, a paramecia like you can't even compare".

Naruto ignored the slight burn in his hand, he figured that because he had gone through Sakazuki so quickly, he didn't get a chance to get burnt too badly. Naruto scanned around the courtyard, he needed a weapon. Then he saw one, the only question was, could he get to it before Sakazuki could get him with his magma. After quickly glancing at Sakazuki, Naruto bolted towards the corpse of a recently killed pirate, Hidan. More accurately he went for the tri-bladed scythe lying next to Hidan.

Naruto got to the scythe and picked it up. Even though he had cut through the handle, there was still more than enough to hold. Naruto turned to face Sakazuki, but to his surprise the Vice-Admiral had not moved a muscle, he remained in the same spot he was in before Naruto went for the scythe. Sakazuki's arm dissolved into magma but kept its basic shape, as he stared at Naruto. He took no pleasure in what he was about to do to a ten year old, but this ten year old _was_ a pirate and all pirates needed to be eradicated in his opinion. No exceptions.

Sakazuki's magma arm started to swell and grow as he reared it back, before yelling

"**Dai Funka"** he yelled as he threw his fist at Naruto

The magma shoot forward in the shape of a fist towards Naruto and in the span of a second, grew more than ten times the size of the fist it originated from. Naruto had to move quickly. He dived to the right and managed to avoid the magma but couldn't avoid feeling the insane heat it gave off. Naruto ran at Sakazuki as the giant magma fist demolished more than a few buildings behind him. The marine shot globs of magma at the boy in an effort to end the threat. Sakazuki did nothing as Naruto leapt at him and slashed at his chest.

Naruto landed thinking he must have done _some_ damage as he had infused the scythe with Busoshoku Haki, but when he looked at the blades he saw that there was magma on them, reducing the once fierce looking weapon to nothing. Naruto dropped it before he could get burn and turned to see the 'damage' he had done. True enough there were some cuts along Sakazuki's chest, but there was no blood, only magma. Naruto however did notice that the cuts infused with Haki were taking longer to heal than normal ones and Sakazuki had a look of discomfort and anger on his face.

"How annoying, I underestimated your ability with Busoshoku Haki" growled Sakazuki as he cocked his molten fist back again to deliver a killing blow, "a mistake that I don't intent for you to benefit from"

However before Sakazuki could through the super-heated punch, Naruto launched a wave of electricity at him, electrocuting him. Sakazuki growled in pain but otherwise didn't move, he still stood there magma at the ready. Sakazuki's logia body had protected him from the worse of the electricity and by now Naruto was starting to get border line scared.

'_I-I can't do anything to beat this guy, I haven't had enough training' _Naruto thought

Sakazuki threw the boiling fist at Naruto, expecting the boy to be frozen with fear. This was proven wrong when Naruto jumped away just before the magma hit him. Sakazuki however flared his magma causing it to shot out and hit Naruto in his left side above the hip. Naruto fell to the floor and screamed in pain. The magma was searing his flesh and caused Naruto to start panicking, he was breathing heavily in between screams and could only look up helplessly as Sakazuki made his way towards him.

After a little while though, the pain started to ease and everything around him started to quiet down. This was either because he had an amazing healing rate or, more likely, he was passing out from the pain and shock. Naruto may have vaguely hard someone yell his name, but the last thing he saw was Sakazuki being blown back by something as he blacked out.

xox

The next thing he knew, Naruto woke up violently in a soft, comfortable bed. He shot up to see there were no more enemies, no more insane scythe wielding maniacs and no more magma. He was in a room back on the Moby Dick. He sighed a breath of relief and fell back onto the bed, but was disturbed again when he felt a terrible pain in his left side, right side, left shoulder and his head. He got out of the bed and walked slowly to a mirror to see that he was wearing a simple pair of white shorts, bare foot and the entire top half of his body wrapped up in bandages and also one wrapped around his head.

Naruto honestly never felt worse in his life. He was hurting, depressed and pissed off. Naruto sat back down on the bed in a bad state. The door to his room then open and in stepped Whitebeard, as if he already knew that Naruto had woken up.

Whitebeard looked down at his son, "I'm glad to see that you're alright, my son" he said warmly

"Yeah" replied Naruto, "what happened with that island anyway?"

"Well, it actually started when the marines lead by Vice-Admirals Monkey D. Garp and Sakazuki went to that island with the intention to liberate it from Kaido, who happened to be on that island when they got there. That's when the fighting started and the villagers were caught in the middle of it. We arrived shortly after that, and the rest you know." Whitebeard explained as Naruto nodded in understanding.

"Now, I think it's time you tell me what happened to you on that island" Whitebeard said

Naruto then proceeded to tell the Old Man about fighting Hidan, finding his devil fruit, discovering his Haoshoku Haki, killing Hidan in the courtyard and watching his nakama get killed by Sakazuki before getting his own ass kicked.

Whitebeard noticed Naruto looking a bit upset when he mentioned his nakama. "Naruto I can tell what you're thinking, but it wasn't your fault. I know you couldn't have beaten Sakazuki. Don't blame yourself for what he did."

"O-oh I know Oyaji, it just pisses me off that he got away with it" Naruto said sadly

Whitebeard made for the door, "Well then, I guess you'll just have to get stronger. Now that you have the power of a devil fruit and have unlocked the Haoshoku Haki, you'll soon become a real threat to the marines. Then you'll have to face Sakazuki again as well as some other marines who are as strong as he is, but that can wait till later, for now get some rest" he finished as he left the room and closed the door.

Naruto lay down on the bed staring at the ceiling.

_I am going to get stronger. I'm not going to let my nakama get killed like that again'_ he thought as lightning sparked around his fingers, _'No matter what'_

(AN)

Hope you like Naruto's devil fruit, I have big plans for it. If you're wondering, Biri Biri is the sound effect for lightning in Japanese

If I introduce Naruto characters then they will only last one or two chapters, they with only be enemies to be kill off or girls to be loved

cya


	5. Chapter 5: Promotion

"talking"

'_thinking, flashbacks'_

xox

**(Twelve Years Later)**

"What, are you insane?" a voice rang out, "I'm not gonna build something this complicated if you can't even pay for it, go and bother some other shipwright, you fool"

A young man watched an angry shipwright walk away in a huff.

"Huh, he didn't have to be such an asshole about it" he mused before walking away

The youth walked down a street, following a canal of water, until he reached the next shipyard and walked in.

"Hello" he called, "can I get some help?" .A shipwright came out to greet him

"Hi, how can I help you?" he asked politely

"Um yeah, I'm just trying to get something built, but no one will build it for me" whined the youth

"Okay, what do you want build?" the shipwright asked

As the youth started to dig into his pockets for something, the shipwright got a good look at his features. He looked to be about twenty-one, maybe even twenty-two. He was about 5 foot 10 and had a muscled athletic frame. He wore black pants and sandals and an open white and red shirt, allowing him to show off his chest and stomach.

On this right wrist he had what looked like a wrist watch with a glass orb sitting on top with a needle floating inside the middle of that orb suspended from the top by a thin piece of wire, and on his left wrist he had almost the same thing, except that there were three orbs with a needle in each, all pointing in different directions. The shipwright knew that the one on his right wrist was a log pose, the navigational device used by all sailors to get through the Grand Line, but he didn't know what the other one was for.

He had a large mop of spikey golden blond hair on his head that came down just past his neck at the back and had two jaw-length bangs at the front that framed his face. He had a handsome looking face, that probably had a few girls after him, but he also had three strange whisker like marks on each cheek, but the most distinctive thing about him was his sharp, striking ocean blue eyes.

The youth finally found what he was looking for and pulled out a small piece of paper and handed it to the shipwright. Upon inspecting the bit of paper, the shipwright sweatdropped at the picture of a stick figure riding on what looked like a crudely drawn surfboard with two motors on the back. The stick figure was giving a thumbs up with the word "ME" above and an arrow pointing to it. The shipwright looked up from the paper at the youth smiling at him stupidly.

"Uh, so is this your own design?" he asked, already knowing the answer

"Yep" the blond chirped happily

"What is it?"

"It's a motorized surfboard. Something I can use to get across the oceans by myself"

"Okay, so what do these motors run on?" asked the shipwright

"Electricity" answered the blond

The shipwright scratched his head in confusion as he tried to conceive how he could build two motors that would be small enough to fit onto the back of a surfboard, yet be powerful enough to transport this young guy across the world's oceans. After about ten minutes the thinking, the shipwright gave up.

"Listen, kid" started the shipwright

"Naruto" countered the blond

"Naruto, I can make the surfboard easily enough, but I just don't have any idea how I could make those motors. In fact I don't think any shipwright could make those" he finished

"Oh…Okay" said a dejected Naruto.

"Well I can't build this, but if you need to go across the oceans I can build you a small, sturdy ship if you want" the shipwright offered

"I guess that will have to do" Naruto sighed

"Great" started the shipwright, "now, how much were you looking to spend?"

"I don't have any money" Naruto stated simply. The shipwright stared at him for a second

xox

Once again, Naruto was walking along one of the many canals that littered this city. Naruto was currently in Water 7, a city located in the first half of the Grand Line. It was a very beautiful city and was crawling with shipwrights, which is what Naruto needed right now. He was currently separated from his crew after spending six months on an island, training.

There was no problem with this, it was just some time too himself where he could practice utilizing his devil fruit powers and his haki, it wasn't the first training trip he had taken either, however his previous training trips were usually shorter than six months

As Naruto walked down an alleyway, that he was almost positive lead to a dead end, he began to think how far he had come after joining the Whitebeard Pirates. It was just over seventeen years ago that the Old Man found his in Loguetown and invited him onto his ship. In those seventeen years, under Whitebeard's protection, Naruto had faced off against the legendary Roger Pirates, including the 'Dark King' Silvers Rayleigh and 'Red-Haired' Shanks who was now one of the Yonko like Whitebeard. Naruto also remembered the first time he faced off against a Marine who was actually strong, Sakazuki. The Marine Vice-Admiral had not only made Naruto feel as weak as an insect but he had also used his magma to horribly scar Naruto. Naruto couldn't help but let his mind wander back to when he first saw it.

**(Flashback)**

_It had been a week since Naruto had faced Sakazuki in battle and been soundly defeated. Now Naruto was staring at his bandaged body in his recovery room. As he pulled the bandages away from himself, he was looking to see if he was scared anywhere. Naruto pulled off all of the bandages from his body, except the one around his mid-section covering the burn he received the Vice-Admiral. He stopped to look at the covered spot that was burnt, before taking a deep breath and slowly remove the bandages._

_When the bandages fell to the floor he finally saw the damage for himself. As well as the pain he still felt, the burnt area was an ugly blood red colour that stood out very clearly against his normally tanned skin. It didn't take up his whole left side, but you certainly couldn't miss it, it was to the left of his incoming abs and reached around to his back. Naruto stared at it impassively, there was no point getting angry at it, that wouldn't make it go away._

**(Flashback End)**

'_Oh well, it turned out pretty cool in the end' _he thought to himself

Naruto was thinking of the old tattoo artist he met a couple of years ago. He was a crazy, perverted old man who kept calling himself the 'tattoo sage', but he knew his stuff. He was so good Naruto let him tattoo Whitebeard's mark onto his back, as well as the simplified version just below his right collarbone, which is just a 't' shape cross with a crescent moon shape running horizontally through the middle.

However by far the most amazing tattoo he performed on Naruto the one on his left size that covered the hideous burn. It was in the shape of a huge nine-tailed fox and was the same blood red colour as his burnt skin. The head was just to the left of his abs, while the body and legs covered the burn itself and the nine tails extended out and seemed to flow over the left side of his back, two of them were even entwined with the Whitebeard mark. Naruto thought it was awesome and it looked a damn sight better than an ugly burn.

The last thing that old 'Ero Sennin' gave him was knowledge. When Naruto showed some artistic talent, the old perv took him under his wing and in the span of five months, Naruto was the best tattoo artist in the Whitebeard Pirates and the best part was that he always had customers.

Naruto was finally pulled from his thoughts when he reached the dead end he was expecting. This city was like a maze and it was now started to piss Naruto off.

"ggrrr, to hell with this" he growled before leaping straight up onto the roof of the building in front of him.

Naruto looked around the city from his new vantage point and made a mental map of all the little alleyways and shortcuts. He also took notice that there were no more shipyards he hadn't been to. Water 7 was the place you wanted to be if you were in the market for a new ship, but there were seven docks in the city and each one was run by a separated company, so they were sometimes more interested in competing with each other than focusing on the quality of their ships. In Naruto's opinion they should unite to make one company or something, at least they could learn to cooperated a bit more.

Naruto sighed again as he looked longingly at the picture of him on the motorized surfboard. He couldn't have one made for him because he didn't have any money and nobody could figure out how to power the small motors. As Naruto walked along the rooftops, he saw what looked to be a scrapyard in the distance and figured he could try making his board himself, before heading towards it.

As he reached the scrapyard he saw three figures standing in the middle. When he got closer he saw one was a huge cowfish fishman with a yellow body, horns on his head and a white beard wearing a unbuttoned light blue shirt, brown shorts and boots.

Another was a tall guy with shoulder length blue hair under a white bandana and wearing a brown T-shirt, beige pants and black shoes.

And the last was a giant frog with yellow-brown skin and black hair shaped in a samurai-style. They all seemed to be building what looked like a train rail. The guy with blue hair wiped some sweat from his brow as he turned to the fishman.

"Nmaa, where is that idiot Franky, Tom-san?"

"Ah, I sent him to St. Poplar to get some more supplies for the track" the now named Tom replied

"I hope he gets the right stuff and not more materials he can make into weapons" said the blue haired guy with an irritated tone

"Tahahahaha, you should trust him more, he's your fellow disciple after all, right Yokozuna" Tom said addressing the large frog

"Gero Gero" the frog agreed

Naruto saw that these three were building something and wondered if they could help him before walking over to them.

"Hey" he said gaining their attention, "I was wondering if I could get you guys to make something for me"

"Nmaa, sorry but we don't have time-" the guy started before being cut off

"What do you need?" asked Tom

"Tom-san, we don't have the time to help this guy, we need to finish the sea train. We're already gone over the allocated time we were given"

"Tahaha, don't worry about it Iceberg. We're almost done anyway and until Franky gets back with more supplies we can't do anything more, and he should be another three days at least. Besides we've been working on this sea train for over a decade and I need a bit of a break" explained Tom

Naruto had heard about this sea train, apparently the track was going to reach from Water 7 to the World Government's island of justice Enies Lobby, as well as other islands. According to some of the locals, the shipwright in front of him, Tom, had promised that the train would bring much trade, tourism and wealth to Water 7, but Naruto just could believe that a track could float just under the surface of the waves a support a train, but he wasn't interested in that now. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his drawing before handing it to the huge fishman. Tom had a quick look at the crude drawing, while scratching his chin.

"Mmmm, yes I see what you're trying to build, but how will these motors work?" he asked

"Electricity" replied Naruto

"Then I'll need to build some kind of generator, but that will make it too heavy" tom thought out loud

"No that's okay, I'll be the generator"

"Huh, what do you mean?… oh wait, did you eat some devil fruit?" asked Tom

"Yep" replied Naruto simply as lightning exploded around his body in demonstration.

The guy, Iceberg, and the frog, Yokozuna both fell backwards in surprise as they saw a field of lightning dance around this guy and the fact that he wasn't bothered by it at all.

'_So this is the power of a devil fruit user, I've never seen one before now'_ thought Iceberg as he stared in awe at the blonde's abilities.

As Naruto let the lightning die down Tom started laughing, "Tahahahaha, that's amazing and it makes my job much easier"

"Oh, you mean that you'll make it?" asked Naruto excitedly

"Tahaha, don't worry I'll make it, and I'll do it with a DON"

**(2 days later)**

Naruto sat in a local bar on one of the higher levels of the city of water, eating some nice ramen and drinking his body weight in alcohol. The day he turned seventeen was the day when he started drinking and due to the insane amount of alcohol consumed since then, Naruto had built up a very impressive tolerance to the stuff, in fact he reckoned that if he kept drinking at the same pace then he would no longer be able to get drunk at all… or he would die. Either way he didn't want to quit drinking now, he was a pirate and a pirate that doesn't drink is just sad.

As Naruto downed his twelfth bottle of sake, the doors of the bar were kicked open and a crew of pirates walked in. They were the type that Naruto hated most, the stereotypical pirates. The ones that killed whomever they want and take whatever they want, and today they wanted booze.

The captain of the crew walked up to the counter, "Oi, we want some sake, so hurry up and get us some" he demanded the bar tender while standing to the left of the sitting Naruto

"H-Hai, right away" he said not wanting to cause any trouble

The pirate captain smirked at the fear he instilled into the bar tender before turning his attention to the blond next to him, who was peacefully eating his ramen. Meanwhile the rest of the pirates where intimidating the local customers, by brandishing their weapons or stealing some of their stuff. The captain picked up the blonde's last drink, the one he hadn't got around to drinking yet. The second he touched the bottle, he looked back at the blond to see if he got any sort of rise from the blond, but Naruto just kept eating his ramen. This annoyed the captain, he was looking for a reason, any reason, to start a fight.

"Oi, is it okay if I take your last drink, huh?" he smirked while nudging and prodding Naruto. The pirate crew started laughing at their captain's antics.

"Oi, captain it looks like he's too scared to do anything about it" one of the pirates laughed

"Hahaha, how 'bout it, are you scared you weakling?" the captain asked as he pointed a pistol at the blonde's head. Naruto however continued to eat his ramen contently, causing the pirated captain gained a tick.

"Grrr FINE, if you don't even want to answer then you won't mind if I kill you either" he yelled as he cocked the hammer on his pistol back

Without hesitation he pulled the trigger. A female customer screamed as the loud BANG sounded out in the bar. The bullet hit the right side wall of the bar, but there was not blood and no dead blond. Everyone was at a loss of words when they saw the bullet hole in the wall but no bullet hole in the blonde's temple. The captain stared in utter disbelieve and shock, as he had seen what had happened, or rather he thought he did. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but it looked like the blond had started to move his head back _as_ he had started to pull the trigger.

The bullet had actually missed the blonde's face by a couple of millimetres and he moved his head forward when the bullet was past him.

Naruto continued to eat his food with a blank expression on his face and his hair overshadowing his eyes.

"W-What h-how did you-urk" the captain started, but was unable to finish when the blonde's left hand came up at lightning speeds and wrapped around his neck, while at the same time easily lifting him a foot off the ground. The captain tried to grab at the hand around his neck but found is strength leave when more pressure was applied by the blond and his legs kicked around in midair trying something to stand on to relieve some of that pressure.

For the next twenty seconds, Naruto finished his ramen with his right hand while holding a fully grown man a foot in the air with his left. One of the pirates finally snapped out of his shock and realised the trouble his captain was in.

"H-Hey you, let go of our captain" he demanded as he swung his sword downwards at the blonde's left shoulder with the intent to cut his arm off. Once again the whole bar was shocked into silence when the sword broke in half upon making contact with the blonde's shoulder. The pirate saw that he'd only managed to cut the blonde's shirt, but also notice a very brief sheen of jet black under it.

The pirate fell backwards when he saw this happen and started shaking slightly, how strong was this guy that he could dodge a bullet at point blank range or have a sword break in half when it hit him. The blond finally looked up from his now empty bowl and turned to the pirate captain in his hand.

"Sorry" he said with a smile, "but that bottle of drink is mine, I couldn't tell you because I was busy eating"

The same pirate who attacked Naruto with his sword finally worked up enough nerve to ask,"O-Oi, how did you do that stuff. How did my sword not cut you?"

"Normal swords won't work against that man" a new voice interjected, "You need a lot more skill and power to hurt him with a blade, isn't that right Whitebeard Pirate's 2nd Division Commander 'Raikiri no Naruto'"

When Naruto heard his name called out he immediately relaxed his hand and dropped the pirate trapped in its grip, at which point he started coughing and gasping for air. Naruto spun around on his stool and saw a well-dressed marine standing at the bar's entrance, while some regular marines were standing at attention behind him. The marine in front wore a purple and white pinstripe suit under the marine 'Justice' coat, he was of average height and build, sported a mohawk and a moustache and had a katana hanging from his right hip. Naruto could tell that this guy, while he was not the strongest marine he'd ever faced, he was definitely far more powerful than any regular marine.

"Ah, you know me, who are you?" asked Naruto curiously

"I am Marine HQ, Vice-Admiral Momonga, and how could I not know you, one of Whitebeard's most trusted and powerful subordinates. You became quite famous when you fought against Admiral Zepher five years ago" he answered

"Well, subordinate is such an ugly word, I'm more like a son" Naruto corrected, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm very busy right now"

"You're a pirate. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't at least try to apprehend you" said Momonga as he drew his sword.

"-Sigh- I didn't want to have to do this, but-"in the blink of an eye Naruto disappeared in a flash before reappearing a split second later behind the marines.

Momonga felt his sword slip out of his hand and heard it hit the floor as he looked down. His left arm was covered in blood. He found the source to be a deep cut beside his left bicep that probably went to the bone. He turned to see Naruto standing with an open palm pointing to the ground, lightning sparked around his hand but looked far more concentrated at his fingertips as the lightning seemed to extend a few inches past each finger forming four strong points made of lightning. They looked sharp, and Momonga had no doubt that those were what cut him.

"**Jigokuzuki (Hell Stab)" **Naruto answered the unasked question, "You're lucky, I could have cut off your whole arm if I wanted too" he said as the lightning died down, "now I really have to go, ja ne" he finished before vanishing again. Momonga glared at the spot the blond just occupied, truth be told the Marine HQ actually knew little about the blond so he wasn't ready to deal with the immense speed shown by the blond. He briefly wondered if the blond could someday match Admiral Kizaru in speed.

xox

A few days later, Naruto had arrived in Fishman Island on his way back into the new world. He had to marvel at the masterpiece of fast ocean travel that Tom-San had made. His new long surfboard had a light blue and white colour scheme and two small but powerful motors attached at its bottom that allowed Naruto to channel his lightning into both to power them. While it was risky in the rough seas it was still very fast. Unfortunately it was way too small to be able to fit it with the coating that allowed ships to travel underwater, so Naruto had to get a one man ship to get him to fish man island and then out into the new world.

Naruto carried the large surfboard over him shoulder as he walked through Fishman Island's streets, and couldn't help but notice the hateful glares he was getting from all of the fishmen around. He looked around, confused at why he was getting these hateful glares. He didn't really mind, he was a pirate and use to people looking down on him, but never on Fishman Island. Everyone knew he was a Whitebeard Pirate, and they all were extremely grateful to the Old Man for protecting their home. Naruto decided to investigate the matter in one of his most favourite places in the world, Madame Shyarly's Mermaid Café.

Years ago Naruto wouldn't have been interested in anything to do with the opposite sex but since he came of age, and his first time with a gorgeous brunette with white/lavender eyes, that changed dramatically. Naruto loved the ladies and most of the time they loved him back, but he liked to think that was never really perverted about it. When he entered the café he immediately knew something was not right on the island. Normally, mermaids are _very_ excitable and even more so when they would spot a Whitebeard Pirate, but today they greeted him with smiles on their faces but Naruto could see that inside they wanted to cry.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that someone of great importance to Fishman Island had recently died or been killed.

xox

**(Two Weeks Later)**

Naruto had now found the rest of the Whitebeard in the New World and was relaxing on the deck of the Moby Dick. He was currently torn between drinking his delicious beverage and falling asleep in the sun, he wasn't sure which one would be better. The decision was made for him however, when he heard his father's huge voice sound out over the deck.

"Naruto, come over here"

Naruto groaned in annoyance at being forced to get up, but eventually managed to get over to where Whitebeard and the other commanders were. Over the past decade the only thing his fellow division commanders changed about themselves were their outfits, some of them had changed in appearance but Naruto had spent so much time around them all that he didn't really notice too much.

The Old Man however, had also changed his appearance over the last decade. He kept the huge captain's coat, pants and black boots, but he lost his hair and captain's hat, opting to wear a black bandana on his head. Naruto sat down between Marco and Thatch, with a large gourd of sake in his hand.

"Tell me what's happening on Fishman Island now" requested Whitebeard

"-Sigh-, well when I was there, every fishman I saw looked like they wanted to kill me, just because I'm a human. I didn't understand why, until I found out what happened a few days before I arrived" started Naruto

"Neptune's wife was killed" Whitebeard finished, having already read about the assassination

"Yeah, apparently a human did it, which is why I was getting those kinds of looks. They must hate humans now"

"But why would a human kill Queen Otohime, what would a human have to gain from that?" asked a confused Thatch

"Maybe it was for wealth or fame" suggested Marco

"Or he was blackmailed" added Vista

Naruto was wondering the same thing as well, what would a human have to gain from killing a political figure that had nothing to do with them. Naruto began to think that he was probably forced to do it, but by whom.

"Naruto", said blond snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the Old Man say his name, "did you see Neptune before you left?"

"Yeah, I spoke to him after Queen Otohime's funeral. He was putting on a brave face for his kingdom and his kids but I told him to let us know if he needed anything"

"Good, the people up here won't really care at all what happens to the fishmen, they need to know that we still protect them"

Naruto nodded in agreement. No doubt because of this the fishmen won't trust humans anymore, yet it was humans that protected them from being enslaved… by other humans. Naruto rubbed his head as it was starting to hurt when he heard his name again.

"Naruto-Taicho"

Naruto smiled, he never got sick of that title. He turned to see one of the men from his own 2nd division in a pretty heated argument with one of the men from Marco's 1st division.

"What is it?" he asked

"The guys from the first division think that Marco-Taicho would be able to beat you in a fight. They say that he's stronger than you"

Naruto looked a bit surprised at that, "Huh, you guys shouldn't be worrying about something like that, we're all on the same team here"

That's right" Marco agreed, "that's not really important… besides everyone knows I'm stronger than Naruto"

Naruto froze when he heard this.

"Hahaha, you're hilarious Marco, for a second there it sounded like you said that you're stronger than me"

"I did" replied Marco

"Ha, on what grounds do you claim this ridiculousness" asked the now annoyed Naruto

"Well, you're the 2nd division commander and I'm the 1st division commander" Marco said defensively

"That means nothing between us and you know it"

This was true, while there was close to no difference in strength between the other commanders, Naruto and Marco were an exception. Both of them were able to hold their own against the Navy Admirals, and on a good day were able to force them into a retreat. However there had recently been some speculation on who was stronger between the two.

"Well it obviously means that I'm better, I mean, besides the captain, what's higher than the first division commander" said the smiling Marco, who was now just playing along to annoy Naruto.

"Hmmmm, what indeed" Naruto mused

Suddenly Naruto stood up and announced to Whitebeard, Marco and anyone else who just happened to be in earshot.

"I challenge you, Marco, to a fight to the…almost death in order to decide, once and for all, which one of use is the strongest. Also the winner will no longer be a division commander-" he turned to Whitebeard to see him smirking at the declaration

"The winner will become the Vice-Captain of the Whitebeard Pirates"

xox

Naruto and Marco stood on the shoreline of a nearby island while the rest of the crew watched from the Moby Dick anchored close by. Naruto was stretching eagerly and get psyched up for the fight, while Marco was just rubbing the back of his head nervously.

"C'mon Naruto, I was just kidding, I don't even want to be the Vice-Captain, I'm happy where I am. Do we really have to fight?"

"Yes" Naruto answered childishly as he finished his stretches, "even if you don't want to fight, we still need to see which one of us is stronger, so there can be no doubts at the end, and don't you dare hold back" he smirked as lightning faintly crackled around him

"-Sigh- I guess it can't be help, I you're my opponent I don't really have a choice other than to go full out" Marco smirked back as blue flames whirled around his hand

The two pirates stood perfectly still as they eyed each other, both full aware that this fight would be a difficult one. The rest of the crew on the Moby Dick watched in suspense as the two blonds mentally prepared themselves.

"S-so when do you think the fight will start" asked a pirate, who was a little nervous because of the aura of strength the two gave off.

"The fight has already started" answered Jozu

"That's right, they're just waiting for the other to make the first move" Vista agreed

Never being really patient, Naruto charged forward and threw a right hook at Marco, who simply brought up his hand to block it. Naruto swiftly followed up with his left leg, extending it out at Marco's mid-section. Not wasting any time, Naruto once again shot forward, but this time lightning was surrounding his hand, and was giving off a weird chirping sound, like birds.

Naruto threw his hand forward, **"Chidori (One Thousand Birds)"**

Marco skilfully ducked under Naruto's attack, not caring that he got shocked slightly, and drove his fist into Naruto's stomach, sending him skidding back.

"Should've come at me with something stronger than Chidori, Naruto" smirked Marco. Naruto knew he was right. Chidori, and is variants, were developed only to defeat weaker or tired enemies.

Naruto didn't have much time to ponder on it as Marco charged, throwing a Haki infused, kick at his head. Naruto blocked with his arm and jumped to avoid Marco sweeping his legs, in mid-air Naruto kicked at Marco's left side but was blocked by Marco's forearms. As Naruto's leg impacted, Marco was sent flying further into the island they were on, with Naruto following closely behind.

As the two blonds moved the fight to the centre of the island, the rest of the Whitebeard Pirates, including the captain, disembarked in order to continue watching the fight that would change the crew for a long time.

xox

So far the fight had lasted two days and wasn't showing any signs of slowing down. The two pirates had been fighting with fists, legs, blue fire and lightning the whole time but were gradually working their way up to their more powerful moves. When the Whitebeard Pirates landed on the deserted island it was rich with forest and rocky terrain, but was now a wasteland littered with, destroyed trees and rubble. The two pirates hadn't stopped since the first day and the only person who could get close enough to see the whole fight without getting caught in the crossfire was Whitebeard.

Currently Marco was on the defence as Naruto pressed the attack. It had been going like this for a while, were one person would be forced back due to fatigue while the other tried to increase that fatigue. Whitebeard had watched the whole fight and could tell that Naruto was, ever so slightly, gaining the advantage.

"**Chidori Eiso (One Thousand Birds Sharp Spear)"** Naruto's voice rang out

Marco narrowly dodged the spear like blade made of lightning, he knew that if Naruto hit him with that it would be bad. It wasn't as strong as Chidori, but simply by manipulating his lightning into a ridged form Naruto had eliminated the risk of getting too close to a dangerous target. It was really a clever attack. Marco rolled out of the way of another, before partially transforming. Blue flames surrounded him as his arms became vast wings and his legs became large talons reminiscent of a bird of prey.

Marco launched himself at Naruto, quickly closing the gap between them. Using his wings, Marco glided along the surface of the ground. Not having much time, Naruto gathered lightning to his hand and threw it forward.

"**Raiju Hashiri (Lightning Beast Running)"**

The lightning expelled from his hand and charged toward Marco of its own accord. Quickly taking on the form of a wolf, it nimbly ran across the scorched earth towards its target. Acting quickly, Marco swiftly moved to the left and dodged the incoming lightning beast, but was so focused on the first one that he didn't see a second one coming until it was too late.

The beast struck him and he was electrocuted for what seemed like the millionth time in three days, he took a knee as he recovered. Normally Marco was very calm and laid back, but even he was starting to get annoyed with this fight.

"Hey Naruto, what do you say we end this fight, and fight at our very strongest from now until the end" offered Marco

"Make a move, Marco, and we'll see if it's enough to beat me" replied the smirking Naruto

Marco scoffed before using his wings to shot up into the air. Naruto's eyes followed him until Marco's form was obscured by the sun, shining through the heavy rainclouds. As the sun finally disappeared behind the dark clouds, Naruto saw what Marco had in mind. Marco the Phoenix in all of his awe and glory suspended in the air staring straight down at Naruto. Light blue flames, slight golden blue hue and the simplified Whitebeard mark tattoo on his chest, Marco's devil fruit was as impressive as it was powerful.

'_I've got to end this soon. Fighting Marco like this will make it much harder. Time for some long range action'_ thought Naruto as once again he charged his arm with lightning. Naruto raised his arm up with his palm facing towards Marco's upward direction. Lightning sparked around his hand as it was focused at the centre of his palm.

"**Gian (False Darkness)"**

The focused lightning exploded out of his hand and shot at Marco like a beam of energy. It ripped straight through his torso and emerged out his back and continued up into the clouds behind him. Naruto couldn't help but think that it was too easy to hit him with that, so either Marco honestly couldn't get out of the way in time or he let it hit him.

It proved to be the latter as Naruto saw the hole in Marco's chest close up. Marco's devil fruit was odd in that sense, it was a Mythical Zoan type that allowed him to use the blue flames to heal himself like a Logia.

Now it was the turn of the hovering phoenix to go on the offensive. He shot at Naruto like a missile, leaving a trek of blue fire behind him. Whitebeard watch safely from a distance, grinning as he watched his two most powerful sons fight to be second in command. He also couldn't help but grin at how far Naruto had come from being some tiny orphan in Loguetown to being the possible Vice-Captain of the strongest pirate crew in the world.

In order to escape the incoming attack, that seemed to be picking up speed at an alarming pace, Naruto had to activate one of his most powerful abilities. A technique in which he used his lightning to stimulate his entire nervous system allowing him to speed up his neural synapses in order to react and move much faster than normal. It was simply called **Lightning Armour**. Naruto rushed towards Marco as lightning arced and crackled all around his body, Marco couldn't help but notice also that Naruto's body was shining in a deep obsidian black colour and his muscles had all expanded and grown, he had gone from a more athletic muscled frame to a huge hulking muscled frame.

'_That's Naruto's Lightening Armour, along will his Busoshoku Haki at its best" _Marco thought warily. Naruto met Marco in mid-air, with an open hand attack

"**Raigyaku Suihei Choppu (Lateral Bolt of Pain: Chop)"**

The two clashed and created a shockwave that cracked the ground beneath them, and sending them both crashing into it. Marco emerged out of the crater his impact created, bloodied and bruised. He panted in exhaustion as he watched Naruto climb out of a similar crater of his own. Marco knew that in this form, Naruto was potentially as strong and fast as Admiral Kizaru. However that wasn't going to make him back down. He summoned his flames again and prepared to charge again, as did Naruto.

However they were stopped before they even started as the ground shook and split in half in front of them. Both blond pirates looked to the side to see their father with his bisento ready, he looked at them with an exited grin.

"Gurarararara, I've had enough of watching this fight, so I'm going to fight the two of you. Whichever one of you is able to hurt me will become the Vice-Captain. If neither of you is able to hurt me then you both go back to being division commanders" he explained

"Are you two happy with that?"

"uhhhh…no" offered Naruto, but was unheard as Whitebeard raised his bisento up and brought it crashing on the ground, creating a shockwave that sent both Naruto and Marco flying back. Marco was the first to recover, and transformed in mid-air before flying towards the Old Man. He flew overhead, transformed back and delivered a dropkick, but was easily blocked and sent flying back again courtesy of Whitebeard's giant fists.

"Are you sure you want to do this Oyaji? You know some old guy like you might get hurt in a fight like this" said Naruto mockingly

"Heh, I've been fighting in fights like this since before you were born, brat" Whitebeard countered

Naruto bolted at his father at break neck speed, intent on showing him his 'Fastest Punch' the **'Lightning Straight'**. It was Naruto maximum speed and a punch that only someone like Kizaru could dodge. The Old Man however didn't even need to dodge it. Timing it exactly right, Whitebeard punched the air in front of him, just as Naruto's fist made contacted with his. The air started cracking and lightning flashed around them, and eventually the clash of both powers caused an explosion that sent Naruto shooting back into a large rock, proving that he still and a very long way to go to get to Whitebeard's level.

The World's Strongest Man. No kidding, he didn't even have a scratch.

If Naruto wasn't completely coated in his Lightning Armour and his Busoshoku Haki, his arm would have been broken. Naruto watched Marco try to, unsuccessfully, force the Old Man back.

'_There's no way I'm strong enough to beat him. Especially not just after fighting Marco' _thought Naruto as he looked up at the thunderclouds in the sky, _'Well I was saving this for Marco, but if I'm fighting the World's Strongest Man I may as well use my strongest attack'_

Naruto lifted his hand up and started to influence the lightning high in the sky. Meanwhile Marco had been sent to the ground again. Whitebeard stood over him.

"Well Marco have you had enough" he asked

"-pant-pant- Yeah I think so, but I could just be saying that so I can get out of here before Naruto does what he's planning"

Whitebeard looked over to see lightning arcing from Naruto's hand up into the dark clouds overhead. He smirked as he wondered what Naruto had planned.

"What are you doing Naruto?"

"Nothing" he replied innocently, "just trying out something new"

At that moment, thunder could be heard rumbling in the sky and Whitebeard notices the rain starting to fall on him. Whitebeard looked up into the clouds to see them being illuminated by some kind of raging monster behind them. By this time Marco decided to back off and get a good look from a safe distance.

Thunder was heard again, louder this time

Whitebeard gripped the handle of his bisento tightly, "Naruto you had better be very sure" he warned

Naruto breathed the word

"**Kirin"**

A deafening thunderclap, eerily similar to the roar of a monster, sounded out over the island. The source of the noise made its appearance as it emerged from the thunderclouds. A giant terrifying creature in the form of a wingless dragon, born entirely of lightning stared down at its target. Naruto bought his hand down and the dragon descended at the speed of a lightning bolt.

In 1/1000th of a second, the incredibly powerful one shot attack hit the earth with an impact similar to a comet. As it hit the ground, it detonated and created an explosion that shook the earth and almost created a tidal wave as it obliterated more than half the island. Marco and the rest of the Whitebeard Pirates could only gawp at the attack as they watch from a very safe distance. Once the dust and debris died down, Naruto saw but he could not believe.

Other that a few cuts and slight panting the Old Man was unharmed, next to him his bisento had been stabbed into the ground and behind his the ocean was quickly filling in the below sea level crater that had just been created.

Whitebeard smiled, "Gurarararara, what's wrong Naruto, where you expecting something else?"

"W-What, h-how did, I-I-I-I don't understand" he stuttered

Whitebeard yanked his weapon from the ground and walked towards his ship.

"You saw how I did it, I think you underestimated me and the power of the Gura Gura no Mi" he said as he passed by Naruto. Naruto remembered back less than two minutes ago

**(Flashback)**

_As Naruto brought his hand down in order to direct his attack, Whitebeard stabbed his bisento into the ground before throwing both fists out to either side. This created a huge shockwave that clashed simultaneously with the Kirin, causing it to veer slightly off course and hit the ground behind him. He didn't get out completely unharmed, but it could have been much worse._

**(Flashback End)**

Whitebeard continued walking as Naruto stood in stunned silence.

"Un-fucking-believable" as all he could say

He then began to think that his captain was unbeatable. However, Kirin was an untested attack that was much more effective against an army of enemies, no so much against an individual with Whitebeard, or probably any of the Yonko or the highest ranking Marines for that matter. Sure, Kirin was definitely his most terrifying and destructive attack, but against someone like Whitebeard…

'_-Sigh- Alright Oyaji, one more test' _he thought, before he once more activated his Lightning Armour and dashed at Whitebeard with one finger held out to the side, his strongest piercing attack, even more so than his infamous Raikiri.

"**Jigokuzuki, Ippon Nukite (Hell Stab One-Finger Nukite)"**

Whitebeard of course sensed it coming, and knowing that it wasn't out of spite or anger, matched his son's challenge when he spun around swiftly and hit him in the body with a quake punch. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain going through his left shoulder. He looked and saw, Naruto had got him. Naruto himself had fallen unconscious, and the lightning sword protruding from his index finger faded leaved a hole in Whitebeard's shoulder a good three inches deep.

"Heh, not bad for a brat" he mused as he grabbed Naruto by the leg and dragged him to the Moby Dick, _'he'll make a good Vice-Captain'_

xox

Naruto awoke suddenly in the same medical room he'd woken up in a few times before, and winced in pain. If he had to guess, he had more than a few broken ribs and a few more fractured bones. He gingerly got up and walked to the mirror to see that he was completely swathed in bandages… again. He moved outside to see it was dark out and his nakama were celebrating something. What was it? He didn't care, any excuse was a good one to drink and celebrate.

"Oh, Naruto-San" he heard from one of his division

"Huh, what happened the Naruto-_Taicho_" he asked

"Oh that's right you must have just woken up, you haven't heard yet" he smiled, "Oyaji, Naruto-San just woke up" he yelled out

Whitebeard looked over from his chair and smiled fondly at Naruto, while just about everyone else in the crew cheered for him. He joined everyone else and sat down next to the Old Man. Whitebeard had a single patch on his shoulder and some medical tape on some bigger cuts, but was fine other than that.

"What's with the party, not that I'm complaining or anything" queried Naruto

"Well we're celebrating your promotion to Vice-Captain, Naruto-San" answered Vista

"Eh"

"That right, Oyaji named you Vice-Captain after you passed out" continued Teach

Naruto turned to the 1st division commander, "Marco?"

"It's fine" he waved off the concern, "you proved that you're only just stronger than me and besides I said that I didn't want to be the Vice-Captain. Now tell us, what the hell was that lightning dragon thing?"

"Oh haha, that was Kirin. I manipulated and influenced the lightning in those thunderclouds and shaped it all in what you saw and then simply guided it down to the earth. I'm still working on it but it shows a lot of potential" Naruto explained happily

"Well, that's surprising, I heard our navigators say that there wasn't going to be any rain or thunderclouds today" said Jozu

"Yeah, but I created those thunderclouds" said Naruto

"Huh? I didn't know you could do that" replied Thatch

"Well since the fight began I was releasing my lightning into the air, slowly heating the cooler temperatures in the atmosphere in order to create them. Guiding all of it down to earth was easy, because it all had to go somewhere"

Everyone laughed at that. It showed that Naruto was a lot more than what he seemed.

As the night went on most of the pirates got really drunk and fell asleep wherever they fell. A few of them were still conscious but were trying to sober up by themselves. Naruto and Whitebeard however were still drinking and talking.

"Naruto now listen up" Whitebeard said seriously. As if a switch was flicked inside his head, Naruto disregarded the considerable amount of booze he'd already drunk and straightened up.

"What is it?" he asked

"Now that you're the Vice-Captain, I have to trust you will a lot of responsibilities, it's not just a title, Naruto. I'm putting you in charge of all of the divisions through the division commanders, and if or some reason someone can't be the division commander anymore, you'll have to command that division, as well as the 2nd until we get a new commander"

"You'll be in charge of inventory, training and whenever I'm away, you will be completely in charge, and finally I'm granting you permission to claim territories in my name."

"Woah" breathed Naruto, now_ that_ was a huge responsibility

"Naruto, unless you have a _Very_ good reason, don't claim an island that's already owned by another Yonko" Whitebeard started

"Oyaji, I know. Don't want to start a war for no good reason, right?" Naruto asked

"So, do you still want to be the Vice-Captain?"

Naruto took a minute to finish his drink, "of course, you couldn't do anything without me anyway" he laughed

Whitebeard smiled, he knew that Naruto would be as great a Vice-Captain to the Whitebeard Pirates as Rayleigh was to the Roger Pirates.

**(AN)**

**BujiBoss here**

Really sorry about the delay, it was the combined effort of a computer virus and severe writers block. I hope you're happy with the chapter and hopefully I'll have the next one ready sooner than I had this one ready


	6. Chapter 6: A New Nakama

"talking"

"_thinking, flashbacks"_

xox

**(Six Years Later)**

A blinding light attempted to creep its way into the blackened vision of an _extremely _hung over man. In an attempt to save himself from the blinding, sickening and headache inducing rays, he tried to pull the bed sheet on top of him over his eyes. He didn't know where he was, he didn't know where anything else was, he could hardly remember who he was and he honestly wasn't sure whether or not he was standing up, sitting up or lying down. So he decided to wake up.

He opened his eyes and then shut them again in the span of a single second. They began to sting, causing him to rub them and roll over. He rolled over once and fell two feet, from the bed he was laying on to the hard wooden floor, with a dull thud. He groaned in annoyance and used all of his strength and willpower to force himself up to a kneeling position.

"_Okay, first things first, who am I…um…..Naruto, right that was easy"_

As his blurred vision began to clear he saw that he was in some sort of hotel room, or a rented room in a pub, and from what he could see, last night was one of the best of his life. The floor was absolutely littered empty alcohol bottles, from sake to rum, whisky and beer. That was not what was drawing the man's attention at the moment however.

No.

It was the three insanely stunningly beautiful,_ completely naked_, women sleeping on the king sized bed in front of him. Brunette, blonde and red head. Unfortunately he still couldn't remember too much about last night. It was only then, after staring for a while, that Naruto realized that he was as naked as the women lying in front of him.

"Oh shit…ummmm… bathroom" he mumbled as he shuffled towards the small room

He managed to reach the bathroom, amazingly, and decided that a hot shower would take some of the edge off. As he soaked in the hot water hitting him, he wondered exactly how much he drank last night, because he honestly thought that he couldn't get drunk and get hangovers anymore, that obviously wasn't the case. After finishing and drying himself off he looked around the bathroom and luckily found his black cargo pants and slipped them on before looking at himself in the mirror.

A twenty eight year old refection looked back at him, with spiky golden blond hair that went down past his shoulders and had two jaw length bangs that framed his handsome face, consisting of a strong jaw line, three strange faint whisker marks on each cheek and two deep blue, bloodshot, eyes. Over the years he had gained more muscle mass, his body wasn't as lean and agile as it had once been. Now he was bulky enough to take on bigger enemies, but he didn't overdo it, it was well proportioned over his impressive 7'5" height. He was still agile enough to be called one of the fastest men in the world.

It had been over a decade and a half since he had eaten his devil fruit, the Biri Biri no Mi, and in that time he had mastered it to such a degree as to make him worthy of being the Vice-Captain of the Whitebeard Pirates.

Before he left the mirror, Naruto noticed a mark, a couple of inches big, on his right shoulder. On closer inspection it appeared to be a strange swirl with a small triangular bit coming off of it, giving the overall appearance of a leaf. He had been a tattoo artist long enough to know that due to the slight agitation around it that is was a fresh tattoo, not that he really cared

Naruto walked out of the bathroom and looked around the room for the rest of his clothes, while trying not to be too distracted by the still sleeping naked females. Eventually Naruto found his black sandals, a pair of dark aviators with reflective lenses that he had dubbed his 'hangover sunglasses' and an ankle length white trench coat with a small lightning design running along the bottom hem. After donning the items of clothing he took one last look at the girls and smiled, he knew that they wouldn't be mad when they woke up to find him gone, such as the life of an infamous pirate.

After leaving the room, Naruto walked downstairs to find an empty tavern. While he was down there he managed to find some of his weapon, a machete style sword with a black ten inch handle and a forty inch blade with a pointed tip that was straight and blunt along one edge and sharp and slightly curved along the other. It was sitting in its sheath, attached to a dark orange belt. Naruto put the belt on and allowed the sword to hang next to his leg.

It was a good sword, swift and graceful enough to be wielded like a katana, yet strong and powerful enough to be used as a machete. It was a gift from all of the Whitebeard Pirates a few months after he'd been made Vice-Captain, after he'd proven that he could do the job. At first he was worried that it wouldn't suit him and was too big, but after much practice and training from Vista, he'd become _very_ good with it, and while a normal person would have trouble with its size, it was just right for Naruto. Vista told him something about a Wazamono Meito, or something, he didn't really know, he wasn't listening at the time.

Grabbing the last full bottle of sake for the road, he walked out the front door and walked down the street, deserted due to the early morning. As he walked, another person in an alley noticed him.

"_i-it can't be"_ he thought desperately as he looked through his stack of wanted posters. When he found it, he looked at the picture and paled slightly when he saw the bounty underneath, _"no doubt about it, it's him. Sencho will want to know about this" _he thought as he ran off

Soon after he came to the island's shore and ran aboard a ship that had run aground. The figurehead of the ship was a flaming skull. There were chains that linked the skull to the sides of the ship. The foremost sail beared the crew's Jolly Roger, which was a skull wearing an orange cowboy hat and flames protruding from it, along with some of the spade symbol from a playing card deck in the background. The back sail had the word "SPADE" displayed on it.

"Sencho" the guy shouted as he ran onto the ship, slightly out of breath. The whole crew, including the captain stopped to look at him. "When I was in town I saw that guy, Whitebeard's Vice-Captain, Raikiri no Naruto"

The crew looked shocked, they had no idea that someone like him was even on the same island as them.

"Woah, hold on, are you even sure that it was him" someone asked

The guy held up Naruto's wanted poster. At the top of the page it read.

**WANTED**

Underneath there was a picture of a tall muscled man with blond hair, a hard look in his deep blue eyes and a smile on his face as lighting sparked around him. Underneath the picture it read.

**DEAD OR ALIVE**

**NARUTO**

**B780,000,000**

"He looked exactly like this"

"Good" said a new voice that drew all attention to the owner.

He was a young man in his late teens, with a lean muscular build, short, straight black hair with some freckles on his face. He wore an open-front shirt, black boots, black knee-length shorts with an eyelet-studded orange belt, and a blue pouch belted around his left leg with a dagger in a green sheath hanging at his left hip, and a red bead necklace.

He also wore an orange hat that was reminiscent of his Jolly Roger, with two blue smileys, one frowning and one smiling, and a string of red beads sitting above the rim, that also had two long orange side straps that hung down sides and met at a large medallion of a bull's skull with orange tassels.

"Ace-Sencho?"

"Let's go introduce ourselves" he smirked

xox

Naruto was currently walking towards the shore where his mode of ocean transport was waiting, when all of a sudden he heard a voice from behind him.

"Oi, hold on a minute, Raikiri no Naruto"

"Uh?' was the intelligent reply as he turned to see an entire pirate crew behind some kid with an orange hat, "what do you guys want?", he sounded annoyed because he was still feeling awful and he only had half a bottle of sake left.

"I need you to tell me where Whitebeard is" the kid smirked

Naruto thought for a minute, "Hmmm why do you want to know that?"

"Heh, because I'm going to take his head and become the Pirate King"

Naruto smiled widely, "Oh really, that's an ambitious dream, but you know that to become Pirate King you need to find One Piece"

"That comes next, first I need to prove that I'm the strongest"

Once again Naruto adopted a thinking pose, "Uhhh… well if you're really sure… umm, he should be somewhere on the ocean". The pirate crew sweat dropped at this, he hadn't really told them anything.

"Well, glad I could help" Naruto beamed, before walking off again.

"OI, wait a minute, Baka"

Naruto turned again to face the impatient kid with the hot temper, "look kid, I told you where he was, now piss off, before you get hurt… whoever you are"

The kid's rage started to boil over at being written off like that and from being called 'kid', "My name is Portgas D. Ace, and if you won't tell me where Whitebeard is, then I'll make you tell me" he said firmly as Naruto felt the temperature rise slightly.

"Huh, you've got a lot of nerve and no idea about the dangers of the New World do you? Luckily for you I'm not in the mood to fight now"

Then Naruto saw _fire _start to surround Ace's right hand and saw a brief flash of what was about to happen before Ace threw his fist forward.

"**Hiken (Fire Fist)". **An enormous column of fire exploded out of Ace's fist and travel towards Naruto like a comet.

"Whoa Holy Shit" he yelled as the attack seemingly engulfed him.

When the attack died down the Spade Pirates saw that there was no burnt body within all of the charred surroundings.

"Heh, I guess the rumours about his speed were true. Come on guys lets go find him" Ace said as his crew followed him in the pursuit of Naruto. However they didn't realise that he was closer than they thought. He was currently hiding up in a tree.

'_Jeez, that crazy moron. What kind of person just shoots another person with fire'_ he thought as he surveyed the damage the Hiken had caused, _' the most dangerous of all insane kids are the ones with the powers of a Logia Devil Fruit, I'm not in the mood to fight him now. Yosh, now to get away stealthily'_, Naruto then proceeded to jump down to the ground but unfortunately tripped over his own feet causing him to fall, hit every branch and crash onto the ground.

"Owww, dammit" he groaned, his actions weren't helping his hangover.

"Oi Ace-Sencho, he's over here, he was hiding in a tree" one of Ace's nakama said as he grabbed Naruto by his coat and pulled him up, "Maybe he's not so tough" he smirked

He would soon eat his words as he found his wrist in a vice grip when Naruto grabbed it and looked him straight in the eye.

"Do you have any idea just how expensive this coat is, or exactly how hungover I am?" the question was more directed to the entire Spade Pirate crew. Before any of them could answer Naruto kicked the guy's stomach and sent him flying into a large group of his nakama.

Ace turned towards Naruto angrily and saw Naruto's hair covering his eyes as he spoke to them.

" . .the.**mood**" as he said the last word he unleashed a blast of Haoshoku Haki that knocked out all of Ace's crew only leaving him standing, albeit shaking.

Naruto took a deep breath to calm down as Ace fell to one knee. Naruto was a little surprised that Ace was still even conscious, it show that he had a lot of willpower. Naruto was about to leave when he sensed someone nearby.

"Uh? What are you doing here Jinbe?"

A large whale shark fishman stepped into the clearing where Naruto and Ace were. He had blue skin, yellow eyebrows, sideburns and a lightning-shaped scar that can be seen from his left side burn and reaching over his left eye. Like all fishman his teeth were sharp and pointed but he also possessed two large tusk-like fangs protruding up from his lower jaw. He was wearing a traditional dark green kimono with a red/orange sash to tie it together.

"I heard that you and the rest of the Whitebeard Pirates were in this general area, so I thought I'd come visit" he said in a deep rough voice, "is this a bad time" he finished as he noticed the unconscious pirates .

"No not really, I'm done here" Naruto replied as he started walking off

"WAIT"

Naruto looked back again to see Ace, having now regained his resolve, standing to fight Naruto. He stood and faced the Vice-Captain of the Whitebeard Pirates with a smirk. Naruto had to admit, he was somewhat impressed with Ace determination

"Don't thing I'm done yet, come on" he challenged

Naruto tilted his head to the side slightly in confusion, "You're not the smartest guy around, are you. You need to learn to quit while you're ahead, you know you remind me of some other crazy bastard that I met once"

"Naruto-San do you want me to take care of him?" offered Jinbe

Naruto stared at Ace who just stared back in return with that same smirk, "No" he said as he walked towards Ace. "Alright kid, first lesson-" he started as Ace launched another wave of fire, only for Naruto to just side step it and vanish in a burst of speed and appear in from of him. Naruto kneed Ace in the stomach before grabbing the top of his head with one electrified hand in an attack, mainly used for discipline, called the **'Iron Claw'**.

"Having the power of a Logia Devil Fruit and having real strength are two _very_ different things". He lifted Ace off the ground for a moment only to slam him back into it

He stood up and looked back down at the conscious Ace, who was bleeding at bit, and said, "Huh, you know you're the first person to at least mildly impress me in a long time. You say that you want to take the Old Man's head, but… I've got a better idea". Ace looked up at him confused

"Why don't you and your nakama join the Whitebeard Pirates?"

"NO WAY" yelled Ace

Naruto deadpanned, "Well don't be too quick to answer"

"I don't want to serve under anyone, besides Whitebeard wouldn't even take me in if he knew that I wanted his head"

"Are you sure about that?" Naruto smiled

After a period of silence, Naruto took Ace's silence as a final refusal. Sighing in slight disappointment, he began walking off again, before…

"**Jujika"**

Naruto turned just in time to see a cross-shaped column of fire coming towards him. Ace gave a pained smirk when he saw the direct hit as the area around Naruto exploded, the smirk faded though when he saw that all he'd succeeded in doing was incinerating Naruto's coat, leaving him bare-chested. Naruto himself was fine however as he stood at ground zero, with his belt and sheath discarded and his sword in his right hand. His steel eyes locked with Ace's.

"Fine" he said, as Ace charged at him.

**(Twelve Hours Later)**

Ace collapsed again for what seemed like the hundredth time. He'd been fighting all throughout the day and into the night, and his opponent was far stronger than he was, that much was painfully obvious to him. In the last twelve hours Ace had been trying to get the better of Naruto, but Naruto was always two steps ahead of him. An hour or two ago his nakama woke up and tried to help him, only to be stopped by the 'Knight of the Sea', the Shichibukai, Jinbe.

His reason was that even though he wasn't a Whitebeard Pirate, he wasn't about to let people with bad intentions see the Old Man. Ace's crew stood little chance against him, He was one of the Shichibukai after all. One of seven very powerful pirates who allied themselves with the World Government.

Ace willed himself up to a kneeling position and glared weakly at Naruto. Raikiri no Naruto, Vice-Captain of the Whitebeard Pirates, Ace had often wondered how he got those titles, and in the last twelve hours he'd found out exactly how. He wanted to keep fighting but he just couldn't.

Suddenly he noticed Naruto looking towards the ocean, his gazed trying to penetrate through the thick fog that had formed. As Ace focused his own eyes in the same direction as Naruto's he noticed the form of a massive ship coming into view. He saw the white whale figurehead, he saw Naruto's nonchalant reaction towards it and he felt the dread and intimidation well up inside him, it was then he knew for sure that the ship was the Moby Dick and the pirates on board were the Whitebeard Pirates.

"Where is the kid who wants to take my head?" a strong voice rang out, "As you wish, I'll take you on"

"I-It's the Whitebeard Pirates" one of Ace's nakama yelled

Naruto saw his father, Whitebeard come into view out of the fog and sighed once more before turning to Ace.

"Well good luck kid, as hard as it was to fight me, the old guy over there is immensely more powerful than I am" he said before jumping onto the figurehead of the Moby Dick with the other Whitebeard Pirates.

"HEY GUYS" he greeted happily, "how did you know I was here?"

Marco looked at him, "Don't you remember you called us on the Den Den Mushi last night, you told us to come here"

Naruto raked his brain trying to remember, did he call the crew with a little snail phone, he couldn't remember. "Mmmmmm, nope sorry, I don't remember that. I must have been playing a prank and you idiots fell for it, ahahahaha-ahhhh" he was cut off by the crew all hitting him. Whitebeard however remained focused on Ace and his nakama.

"I'll take care of this"

That was all that needed to be said, the Whitebeard Pirate stayed back as the man himself walked towards Ace and his crew, he stopped in front of them before setting off a shockwave that sent all of the Spade Pirates flying back.

"GUYS" yelled Ace in worry, he glared at Whitebeard and, having found his energy stood up and yelled, **"Enjomo"**. A large circle of fire was created around Ace and Whitebeard in an effort the keep the Yonko away from the Spade Pirates. Whitebeard stared at Ace, utterly unfazed by the fire.

"Ace-Sencho, what are you doing"

"Run, you guys" yelled Ace in return

"What, are you going to run away now?" Whitebeard antagonized

"I'm making sure my nakama get away safely, I'll fight in their place, I won't run away" Ace yelled

"What a cheeky brat you are" Whitebeard smirked

Meanwhile Naruto and the rest of the Whitebeard Pirates watched the young super rookie stand against the Old Man. "Man, that kid is either really brave or really stupid, he's had a lot of bad luck lately, having to fight me then Oyaji" Naruto sighed, before turning to Marco with a smile, "Oi Marco, how long do you think the kid will last"

"Well if you were able to beat him so easily then I don't see him lasting long at all" replied the blond

Just as Marco finished the sentence, Ace charged at Whitebeard in what he knew was a suicidal attack. Before Ace could even do anything worthwhile he was easily defeated by Whitebeard, and after a few more attempts that also failed miserably, Ace was utterly defeated lying face down in the ground.

Whitebeard watched his unmoving body for a bit and noticed when he began to slowly pick himself up for probably the last time. Ace just could not believe the difference in strength, he couldn't even touch Naruto but this old guy was much stronger than both himself and the lightning wielding blond.

"So this is the man who's strength rivalled _his_" he said to himself, he looked up to see Whitebeard looking down at him

"Still trying to stand up?" asked the Old Man, Ace glared at him. "I'd hate to see you die here kid, if you still want to fight, then take my name and roam the seas wild and free"

Naruto smiled, he knew that the Old Man would do something like this when he saw Ace's tenacity. The smile only grew when he saw Whitebeard kneel down, offer one of his huge hands and say the words that he'd said to Naruto himself all those years ago in Loguetown.

"Become My Son" he finished

"YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME" Ace yelled before he passed out

xox

The next day, Ace woke with a start. His surroundings were unfamiliar to him and he immediately remembered what happened yesterday. Not only had he challenged _the_ 'Raikiri no Naruto', who was strong enough to beat him effortlessly, but he'd also challenged Whitebeard, 'The World's Strongest Man', and he was a lot stronger than Naruto. Now for some reason Whitebeard had left him alive, no way was he was going to join the Whitebeard Pirates, no, his goal remained the same. He'd find an opening and kill the Old Man when he wasn't looking.

Ace walked outside and was meet by the sound of the roaring ocean, casually working pirates, the familiar sensation of being on a ship and the sun in his eyes. When he saw the ship that was vastly bigger than his own he began to worry about his nakama, what had happened to them? He sat against the ship's railing as he thought about it before he heard…

"Hey, I'm the Fourth Division Commander, Thatch" he introduced himself to Ace, before sitting on the rail Ace was sitting against and continued, "Since you're now going to join the crew, I think we should be friends"

"Shut up" Ace snapped

"Heh, you woke up in a bad mood, didn't you. So do you want to know what happened after you passed out. All of your nakama came back to try and save you, so we kicked their asses" Thatch saw Ace flinch when he said that, "What, it's not like their dead or anything, they're here on the ship like you"

Ace looked up at him and said, "It's not a good idea to leave me walking around without any chains or shackles"

"Shackles, we don't need those" Thatch scoffed, causing Ace to glare at him.

Over the next few weeks, Ace had tried to kill Whitebeard over one hundred times, only to be rewarded with a bloody nose or a trip overboard, which was especially annoying as he couldn't swim. On more than a few occasions he'd attempted to kill Naruto when his guard was down as he still felt bitter about losing to him, but this just led to the painful **'Iron Claw'** or some electroshock treatment. As it went on, Ace began to understand that he wasn't going to get anywhere the way he was now.

He was sitting on his own wit only his thought to keep him company, while the Whitebeard Pirates were having fun drinking and eating. He noticed someone place a bowl of hot stew next to him and walk off, he looked up and saw Marco walking off.

Before he got too far away, Ace asked "You guys, what do you call Whitebeard you're father"

Marco turned to face him and answered, "Because he calls us his sons. To the rest of the world we are just outcasts. It makes us happy though, it's just a word but it makes us happy" he smiled

Ace looked down sadly, Marco noticed and walked over to him. "How long are you planning on doing this, there's no way you can take either Naruto's or the Old Man's head the way you are now. Just make up your mind, are you going to leave and try being a captain again or are you going to stay and accept Whitebeard's mark on your back"

xox

Since deciding to take Whitebeard's offer, Ace was now one of the strongest pirates in the crew. Within a few months, after Naruto had tattooed Whitebeards mark on Ace's back, the Marines had been made aware that 'Hiken no Ace' was now under Whitebeard's protection, after almost two years of training with Naruto, Marco and Whitebeard, Ace was now stronger than he'd ever been, so he wasn't too intimidated when Naruto asked him to do something.

"Oi Ace, come over here" Naruto called out. He was standing at the port side of the ship looking at another ship that was close by

"What is it?" asked Ace

"See that ship over there" Naruto said pointing in the ship's direction, "I think that it belongs to the "Bohemian Knight" Doma, I think that he'd be a good addition to our allied forces. I want you to go over there and try and convince him to join. Do you think you can handle that on your own?"

"Heh, just watch" Ace said smugly

He jumped down into his little flame powered boat, that he was inspired to get after he saw Naruto's lightning powered surfboard, and directed it towards the ship as Naruto watched from the Moby Dick. After a brief fight, Naruto could see that Ace had succeeded my making Doma and his crew surrender.

"Not bad" Naruto mused, "hmmm, I wonder. Hey guys" he turned to some of the guys in the second division, "what do you think about letting Ace become the new Commander of the Second Division"

"Oh, that's a great idea Naruto-San, we've been in need of a new one ever since you quit"

"I didn't quit, I just got promoted, now I command the commanders" Naruto smirked

Later that night Whitebeard was drinking in his cabin with his Vice-Captain. They were discussing Ace's possible ascension to Naruto's old position, the only reason why Ace wasn't the Second Division Commander right now was that he'd yet to give an answer to whether or not he wanted the job.

"Do you think Ace is ready to be a Commander?" asked Naruto

"Well he's strong enough if that's what you mean, unless you doubt your own training methods" responded Whitebeard

"No, of course not. If he's still weak after my training then there's something wrong with _him_" Naruto countered stubbornly

When Ace first decided to become a Whitebeard Pirate, he approached Naruto and asked him to make him stronger. Ace realized that he needed to get much stronger, and what better way to get stronger than by asking a guy who kicked your ass into the ground for twelve straight hours to train you. Granting his request, Naruto took Ace under his wing and taught him how to use Haki, and how to be a better fighter overall. After getting over his initial dislike of Naruto, Ace began to view him with respect and slight admiration and saw him as the older brother he never had, he wondered if that's how his own younger brother viewed him.

Whitebeard and Naruto then heard a knock on the door and Ace's voice behind it, "Oyaji, can I come in?"

Ace stepped into the room and saw both pirates looking at him, "Oh Naruto, you're here to"

"Did you need to talk to Oyaji alone? I can leave if you like" Naruto offered

"No no, it's alright, I think you should know as well" Ace began

"Know what?" Naruto asked

"The identity of my father"

Ace explained to Whitebeard and Naruto that his biological father was in fact none other than the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger. He also told them how, before his death, Roger asked the great Marine hero Monkey D. Garp to look after the infant Ace and grew up as an adoptive grandson. Ace always hated telling people about his father, because he wasn't too fond of the man in the first place. He expected Whitebeard and Naruto to reject him and throw him out of the crew, so it surprised him when they didn't.

"Wow, that's amazing, I didn't even know Roger had a son" Naruto said

"Heh, so that's how it is, although you don't really act like Roger" Whitebeard added

"Yeah, he was really reckless all the time. It was kind of crazy" Naruto agreed

"You were enemies with him, weren't you? Aren't you going to kick me out" Ace spoke up

"Hahaha, dope" Naruto laughed, "Why would we do something like that over something so trivial". Ace was surprised when he heard this.

"I doesn't matter who your parents are, in the end we are all children of the sea" Whitebeard smiled, "so what do you say, Second Division Commander?"

The next day the Whitebeard Pirates threw a huge feast in celebration of Ace becoming the new Second Division Commander. There was almost every food you could think of on display and enough alcohol to last at least until the end of the day.

"Congratulations Ace" Naruto cheered, "today you become the Commander of the Second Division, a position that I was far to overqualified for, let's hope you can do at least half a good as job as me" he finished shamelessly causing the crew to sweat drop

"Anyway Ace this is a party, here" said Marco handing Ace some food, who started eating like he'd been starving for days before he suddenly fell asleep while eating.

"HE FELL ASLEEP" the crew yelled

"Haha, narcolepsy, how strange" Naruto laughed while Whitebeard look on fondly.

xox

As the weeks went by, Ace's reputation and fame grew to new levels. The media soon found out that Ace was now the Whitebeard Pirate's Second Division Commander and his name had travelled everywhere, his bounty increased and now, instead of being known as 'hiken no ace' the super rookie, he was now 'Hiken no Ace' a commander in the Whitebeard Pirates. Things were good, but this was soon to change, over a fruit.

"Ace look at what I found" Thatch said as he held up a round, light purple fruit made up of many small teardrop-shaped components with swirl patterns with a few green leaves sprouting from the top

"Is that a Devil Fruit?" asked Ace

"Yeah, but I don't know if I should eat it" Said Thatch

"You have to" said Naruto coming into the conversation, "It's the rule, you know that"

"Well what if it's something pathetic, I don't what to lose my ability to swim for something that isn't worth it" Thatch argued

"-Sigh- Fine then, you can think about it while you're on watch tonight" Naruto said tiredly as he turn to the crew around them, "who wants to join him? One of you has-"

"I will" Teach cut him off

Naruto was a little taken aback at Teach's willingness, "Uhh Okay good"

That night Naruto was having trouble sleeping, he kept waking up and having a terrible feeling that something just wasn't right. Was it just the heavy thunderstorm or was it something else. He finally got up and for good measure checked around the ship with his Kenbunshoku Haki, that's when he was sure that something wasn't right. Before you could blink, he shot out of his room and bolted to the deck, and what he saw was painful.

Thatch, or rather his corpse, was lying face down on the deck, surrounded by a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds in his back.

Naruto walked over to him and checked his pulse, even though he already knew Thatch was dead. Lightning that wasn't his own flashed and the thunder roared after it as he inspected the body of his nakama. He turn the body over and looked into Thatch's now lifeless eyes, he brought his hand over Thatch's face and closed the eyes as he brought his hand down over it.

Naruto looked up and saw Whitebeard looking down at the scene. Apparently he had felt that something was off to. His fists were clenched so tight his knuckles were turning white and has face was steel but Naruto could tell that his heart was breaking. Whitebeard was feeling the same pain he always did when one of his sons died.

Naruto stood up and placed his jacket over Thatch's pale face, and slowly walked to the ship's railing and placed both hands on it. It was obvious to him who had committed this crime, but like the coward he was, he'd run off already. Naruto rage was building, he'd _never_ been this angry and the lightning in the sky was responding to it. It collected to one point and came done in the form of 'Kirin'.

It struck the surface of the ocean and detonated, causing a massive explosion and crated a huge wave that rocked the Moby Dick. The combination of the explosion and the rocking woke everyone up, and they all assembled on deck where they saw their murdered nakama.

"Who did this" Jozu yelled

"I think you can tell by who isn't here" Naruto replied

"Teach, he was part of my division, and I let this happen" Ace growled, "I'm going to go find him"

"Calm down, Ace" Marco said as some of the crew tried to stop him

"Let me go, if I ignore this then how will Thatch be able to rest in peace?" he yelled

"Ace" Whitebeard said, "just this once it's fine, I've got a bad feeling about this"

Ace just couldn't accept that, "He killed a nakama and ran away. After living under your protection for so long, he did this and spat in your face".

"ACE" Naruto said sharply, "Listen to Oyaji, this isn't your fault, nor is it your responsibility. If anyone should go, it's me. The only reason I haven't left already is because I was told not to, just like you are now"

Ace turned and put his hat on, "He tarnished his father's name, you think I can just ignore that? I'LL SETTLE THIS"

With that he jumped down to his little flame powered boat and took off. Naruto ran inside and got his lightning powered surfboard.

"I'm going after him. Ace is right, I can't let this go either" he said to Whitebeard, as he threw the board on top of the sea, "I'll find Teach, and if I don't kill him first then I'll bring him back.

The Old Man sighed, "Fine but be careful, you know that Teach is stronger than he lets on"

Naruto nodded and jumped onto his board and channelled his lightning to the motors, causing them to start and shoot him forward. After years of practice, Naruto was an expert with his board, he could travel over the vast seas at amazing speeds, without so much as losing his balance. Soon he caught up to Ace, due to his board being more powerful than Ace's boat, it was made by the best shipwright in the world after all.

"ACE" he called

Ace stopped and looked to see Naruto, "Don't try to talk me out of this Naruto, you can't change my mind"

"I know" Naruto said as he stopped beside Ace, "I'm going to look for him to, but I think we should split up and do our own searches, it'll be easier to find him that way" Ace nodded in agreement, "But listen Ace, if you find him, do _not_ fight him. He's stronger than you think, if you find him, call me on my Den Den Mushi"

"Tch, fine" Ace grumbled before he took off again. Naruto sighed and headed in the other direction.

xox

It had been a few weeks since Naruto and Ace when their separate ways in search of Teach, and so far Naruto had only heard that he was going by the alias 'Blackbeard', very original. Naruto found himself in East Blue, the very sea he was born in, and he also found himself to be very hungry. Luckily he could see an island in the distance, maybe there was a town or something.

After a little while he reached the island's shore, and carried his board over his shoulder. He travelled into the town and found the streets deserted, everyone was hiding inside.

"HELLO, ANYONE HERE" he yelled

"Who are you?" Naruto heard from behind him. He turned to see a guy in a dark brown police uniform with short sleeves and pants and matching hat with a pinwheel in it. He had a thick black moustache and his body was covered in scars.

"I'm just looking for something to eat" Naruto replied

"There's nothing here, if you value your life then leave" the man said darkly

"Gen-San, stop scaring him" a new voice said. It belonged to a very beautiful woman with short blue hair, with a red ribbon in it. She had a blue tattoo on her right arm that spread over her ample chest and wore a beige sleeveless top, blue pants and purple sandals.

"I'm Nojiko and this is Genzo" she said pointing to the guy, "but it is dangerous for you to be here"

"Why" Naruto asked

"This island is being held hostage by a group of fishmen pirates, and they have a deep hatred for humans, especially their leader Arlong"

"Arlong, huh? What's he done so far" Naruto asked, by now the villagers had gotten curious enough about him to come outside.

"Why do you care" Genzo growled

Naruto looked at him with a fierce look that startled him for a bit. Naruto didn't like being talked to like that, "Humour me" he said

Nojiko and Genzo explained to him, that Arlong came to the village about eight years ago and demanded that everyone pay taxes to him. B50,000 for kids and B100,000 for adults, and if they couldn't pay then they were executed, like in the case of Nojiko's adoptive mother.

This pissed Naruto off, nobody had the right to charge people to live, fishman or not. "If you want I could take care of him, but I'll need some food and drink when I get back"

"W-Wait, didn't you hear what we told you, if you fight Arlong then you'll die" Nojiko said

Naruto smiled, "Oh, don't believe me? Then why don't you come and watch, I'll beat Arlong and his entire crew"

He walked down the road towards Arlong Park, where he'd been told that's where Arlong was. The villages followed, although they were worried, if this guy couldn't beat Arlong then it would look like a rebellion of their part. Naruto reached the front door of the park and with a single punch, knocked it straight off the hinges and ten feet away.

"WHAT THE HELL" a voice sounded out over the park

"Oi you, hold this for me" Naruto said as he passed his board to Genzo

He walking into Arlong Park while the villages watched from outside, most of them with their jaws on the floor, just how powerful was this guy. Naruto looked at an entire crew of fishmen ready for battle glaring at him, except the one sitting down in a stone chair. He calmly looked at Naruto with a smug sense of false superiority.

"Which one is Arlong" Naruto asked evenly

"I am" Naruto looked at the fishman in the chair, he was tall and muscular with light blue skin, a sun shaped tattoo on the left side of his chest and a nose in the shape of a saw, he had long black hair, gills on his shoulders and a dorsal fin on his nape. He wore an open yellow and black shirt, green shorts and sandals. "Who the hell are you"

"I'm the guy who's going to remind you about the power of the Grand Line" Naruto said

"What?" asked Arlong. He stood up to match the challenge, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. It belonged to a ray fishman, with black hair wearing a dark blue karate gi.

"Arlong-San, let me deal with this guy. If you go on a rampage then you'll destroy Arlong Park" he said

Arlong smirked and sat down, "Fine, do what you want, Kuroobi"

Kuroobi walked towards Naruto, while cracking his knuckles, "It's not your lucky day. I'm a level 40 Fishman Karate master. There's no way you could possibly beat me, this attack is strong enough to break through one hundred tiles", he drew his fist back and yelled

"**Hyakumaigawara Seiken (Hundred Tile True Punch)"**

To the villagers, pirates and Arlong himself, Kuroobi's punch travel at blinding speed, but to Naruto the fist may as well have been travelling in slow motion. He brought his hand up and caught the fishman's fist without so much as a shred of difficulty. To say that everyone around was shocked would be an understatement. No one had ever fared this well against Arlong's crew, and he'd not really done anything yet.

"W-what, how did he do that" asked a shocked Genzo. Nojiko said nothing as she watched this man easily triumph over the strength of a fishman.

"H-hey, let go of me dammit" growled Kuroobi, he found it surprisingly difficult to overpower this supposedly weak human. He couldn't pull his fist back, and he could feel the grip on it tighten to the point where it was becoming painful.

"-yawn- Don't you have an attack that could destroy a million tiles or something, because then I might be interested in fighting you" Naruto complained in a bored tone, "aaahhh, this is boring" he sighed, before he kicked Kuroobi in the ribs and sent him flying out of Arlong Park, crashing through its wall and eventually ending up in the ocean. Despite being a fishman, being in the ocean wasn't going to help him, not with a concussion, internal bleeding, punctured lung and more than a few shattered ribs.

If everyone was shocked before, that was nothing compared to their reaction this time. Arlong looked on in horror as his fishman brother was utterly defeated with one kick, and the human in front of him, the disgusting human that did it, was looking at him with a smug smirk on his face.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to hit him that hard. I'll hold back more power next time", the fishmen glared at him with hatred

"How dare you" said an octopus fishman with six arms, pink skin and grey hair styled in five spikes, wearing a yellow and maroon striped outfit, "Let's go, everyone" he yelled as he led all of Arlong's pirates against the blond from all sides, thinking that their superior numbers would be more than he could handle. They didn't know how wrong they were.

"**Chidori Nagashi (One Thousand Birds Current)"**

Naruto expelled a huge electrical discharge in all directions, catching all the fishmen that tried to attack him. If they didn't pass out from the pain of being electrocuted, then the lightning coursing through them caused numbness and temporary paralysis. All the fishmen collapsed, once again to the utter joy and bewilderment of the villagers, leaving only an extremely infuriated Arlong. Naruto smirked at his handy work, he liked that attack, it was useful for dealing with crowds weren't worth fighting singularly or using Haoshoku Haki.

Naruto looked at Arlong, "Alright, I'm going to give you one chance to take your crew and leave. If you don't take it then, well, I can't be held responsible for what happens to you"

Arlong had a dark look in his eyes as he stood up, "You damn human, you think you can could into _my_ sea and tell me what to do, after attacking my brothers" he slowly started walking towards Naruto

"Huh? _Your _sea" he asked, "What makes it yours?"

"I am the strongest pirate in the entire East Blue, a weak human like you can't even compare" Arlong yelled as he punched the blond in the face, he smirked as the villagers gasped.

However the smirk soon faded as Naruto slowly turned his head back towards Arlong showing no damage at all. "Are you done?" Naruto asked

Arlong gave no response before Naruto delivered his own punch to Arlong's face, sending flying back and crashing into the building behind him. About a minute later he came bursting back outside, his saw-like nose bleeding and wielding a huge saw shaped sword that resembled a shark's teeth. He glared at Naruto, determined to kill him if it was the last thing he did.

Naruto looked at the sword, "Woah that's a cool looking sword, where did-" he started excitedly before remembering why he was in East Blue in the first place, "uhh, okay, I need to go soon, so I'm going to speed this along"

"SHAAAAAAA" Arlong roared as he brought his massive sword down on Naruto. Naruto calmly side-stepped it, allowing Arlong to bury the blades into the ground, and brought an electrified hand to Arlong's chest, aiming for the sun tattoo.

"**Raikiri"**

The hand went straight through, it always did. Arlong had never felt so much pain before, he coughed up blood and fell to his knees as Naruto pulled the hand out.

"T-That attack, who are you?" Arlong asked again, already knowing

"My name is Naruto, Vice-Captain of the Whitebeard Pirates" Naruto said firmly, Arlong and the villagers were shocked to the core.

Of course they'd heard about the legendary Whitebeard and his infamously powerful Vice-Captain, Raikiri no Naruto. He was rumoured to be on the same level of strength as the marine admirals, no wonder Arlong and his crew stood no chance against him.

"Gen-San, d-did you hear that just now?" Nojiko asked

"Yeah, Raikiri no Naruto, rumoured to be one of the fastest men alive, but what the hell is he doing in East Blue" Genzo replied nervously

Naruto looked Arlong straight in the eye, "Listen up, I missed your heart on purpose. It's only because of the _enormous_ amount of respect I have for both Fisher Tiger and Jinbe that I'm sparing your life and the life of your crew, in fact if you have the gall to even call yourselves fishmen pirates then your wounds should heal fine." He looked at the destroyed sun tattoo on Arlong's chest, "But you don't deserve to have that mark. Fisher Tiger never killed or enslaved humans the way you did"

Arlong glared up at Naruto, "YOU DON"T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT TIGER-ANIKI" he screamed

"I know enough" Naruto responded calmly, "now leave, if I ever hear so much as a rumour that your starting trouble, then I'll hunt you down and make some shark-fin soup"

He calmly walked towards the villagers, with a large smile on his face as the villagers looked at him in complete awe. Meanwhile Arlong's rage was building inside him, first this human comes into his home, beats up his brothers, destroys his precious Sun Pirates mark and then say that 'he didn't deserve it'. No, there was no way he could let this go. He tore his sword out of the ground, picked himself up and leapt at Naruto.

Naruto sensed the attack and brought his jet black, hardened right arm up, blocking the attack and shattering the sword in the process. He spun around, fury in his eyes and charged electricity around his black arm, only this time the lightning a light blueish/white colour, this time it was the same jet black colour as his arm. He thrust an open palm at Arlong, stopping an inch before his face.

"**KuroPansa (Black Panther)"**

A giant black panther, made entirely from black lightning formed out of Naruto's arm and clamped Arlong in its massive jaws before slamming him into the ground. Arlong lay there unconscious, bleeding heavily and burnt, not only was he electrocuted by the lightning animal, but its teeth bit into him as though it was a real panther. After dealing with Arlong the panther ran at the large building that was Arlong Park and crashed into it before it exploded in a fury of black lightning that tore through wood, cement and iron, causing the building to collapse in a heap of rubble.

After the dust had cleared and the lightning vanished, Naruto and the villagers looked at the remnants of the pirate crew and its base that kept Conomi Island and its inhabitants hostage for the past eight years.

"I-I can't believe it, Arlong was beaten" one villagers said in shock

"After all our struggles, this guy beat him effortlessly" the villagers continued staring at the scene for a little while, before they burst out cheering.

"ARLONG HAS FINALLY BEEN DEFEATED"

"THANKYOU NARUTO-SAN"

Naruto faced them with a smile, "Aww, it was nothing really" he laughed, "I just wish they put up a better fight". He noticed Genzo smiling at him and Nojiko looking at him with some tears of joy in her eyes, he was a bit taken aback when she hugged him.

"Thankyou Naruto-kun, you've saved us and my sister from Arlong"

"It's no problem" Naruto said as he looked at Arlong's unmoving form, "he was just a big fish in a little pond. The Grand Line is full of people that could have beaten him as easily as I did"

"Oi let's have a party Naruto-San" a villager yelled

"Sorry I can't. I'm currently looking for someone, so I'll have to get going soon" Naruto replied

Nojiko gave a coy smile, "Well that's a shame, I was hoping to repay you" she leaned in to Naruto's ear and whisper loud enough for only him to hear, "with my body"

As he heard this, Naruto's eyes slowly started to widen. He wasn't crazy, if he ever got a proposition like that that, he was always going to take it. Fuck Teach, he could wait.

"Well, okay, I'm never one to pass up on a party" he laughed

**(AN)**

Another chapter done, the longest one I've done so far. I also reloaded Chap 5 because of a severe fuck up on my part in terms of Marco's powers

If you're wondering about Naruto's sword, it's like a bigger version of the sword from the movie 'The Book of Eli'. Like a machete type sword.

Naruto meets the StrawHats next Chapter.


End file.
